SCAD Savannah Film Festival Announces Entertainment Weekly’s Breaking Big Honorees
Julia Butters, Tati Gabrielle, Tonatiuh, Grace Van Patten, and Tyriq Withers
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA (Oct. 3, 2025) — The SCAD Savannah Film Festival is once again partnering with Entertainment Weekly to host the annual Breaking Big Awards and Panel, taking place Thursday, Oct. 30. This year's honorees include Julia Butters (Freakier Friday), Tati Gabrielle (The Last of Us), Tonatiuh (Kiss of the Spider Woman), Grace Van Patten (The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox/Tell Me Lies), and Tyriq Withers (Him), who will all participate in an awards presentation and panel discussion moderated by Entertainment Weekly Editor-in-Chief Patrick Gomez. Entertainment Weekly editors will attend the festival and moderate select panels.
Additional programming includes the Opening Night screening of Eternity, where actor Miles Teller will receive the Distinguished Performance Award and co-star and festival honored guest Da’Vine Joy Randolph will join him onstage. Song Sung Blue is the festival’s Centerpiece Gala screening, with director Craig Brewer to receive the Spotlight Director Award. The festival will close with director Rian Johnson receiving the Outstanding Achievement in Directing Award at a screening of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.
The Breaking Big recipients will join previously announced festival honorees: Luminary Award recipients Will Arnett (Is This Thing On?) and Rose Byrne ( If I Had Legs I’d Kick You); Rising Star Award recipient Miles Caton (Sinners); Vanguard Director Award recipient Jon M. Chu (Wicked: For Good); Breakthrough Performance Award recipient Zoey Deutch (Nouvelle Vague); Vanguard Award recipient Joel Edgerton (Train Dreams); Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Mark Hamill (The Life of Chuck); Icon Award recipient Oscar Isaac (Frankenstein); Virtuoso Award recipient Jennifer Lopez (Kiss of the Spider Woman); Lumiere Award recipient Dylan O’Brien (Twinless); Maverick Director Award recipient Benny Safdie (The Smashing Machine); and Distinguished Performance Award recipient Tessa Thompson (Hedda).
About the SCAD Savannah Film Festival
Presented by the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), the SCAD Savannah Film Festival is filled with cinematic creativity from award-winning professionals and emerging student filmmakers. Each year, more than 75,000 people attend the eight-day festival. The festival has become a distinguished stop on the road to the Academy Awards, hosting exclusive screenings, competition films, feature films, documentaries, shorts, animated films, panel discussions, and workshops at SCAD's historic theaters and industry-leading studio spaces. Presented in Savannah, a premier film hub in the Southeast, the festival promotes quality movies produced by independent and studio filmmakers.
Follow the festival on Facebook, Instagram, Letterboxd, and TikTok @savfilmfest. For additional information and tickets, visit filmfest.scad.edu.
SCAD: The University for Creative Careers
SCAD is a private, nonprofit, accredited university, offering 100 graduate and undergraduate degree programs across locations in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; Lacoste, France; and online via SCADnow. SCAD enrolls approximately 18,500 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 100 countries. The future-minded SCAD curriculum engages professional-level technology and myriad advanced learning resources, affording students opportunities for internships, professional certifications, and real-world assignments with corporate partners through SCADpro, the university’s renowned research lab and prototype generator. SCAD has earned top rankings for degree programs in interior design, architecture, film, fashion, digital media, and more. Career success is woven into every fiber of the university, resulting in a superior alumni employment rate. A 2025 study found that 99% of recent SCAD graduates were employed, pursuing further education, or both within 12 months of graduation. SCAD provides students and alumni with ongoing career support through personal coaching, alumni programs, a professional presentation studio, and more.
About the SCAD School of Film and Acting
With resources that rival Hollywood studios — including stunning locations, two professionally run casting offices, stellar film and television festivals, and award-winning faculty from film, television, Broadway, and beyond — the SCAD School of Film and Acting is the ideal place for students to launch into the multibillion-dollar film and television industry. The SCAD acting, cinematography, editing, film and television, production design, and sound design programs prepare students to collaborate and command roles on stage, screen, and behind the scenes through unparalleled instruction and real-world experience on productions for short films, live performances, TV sitcoms, dramatic series, music videos, commercials, and more.
SCAD students pursuing careers in film, entertainment, and media find a home base at SCAD Film Studios in Savannah, the largest and most comprehensive university film studio complex in higher education. This 11-acre studio complex includes a Hollywood-style backlot with more than 40 street facades and 8,000 square feet of dressed interiors, a magnificent 17,000-square-foot facility with a production scene shop and costume sewing labs, and a next-generation LED volume stage for virtual productions. The complex is complemented by SCAD Film Studios in Atlanta, the site of the university's second LED volume stage, as well as three stories of editing suites and broadcast studios. At SCAD, every set, stage, and studio is a classroom.
During the 2025 festival, SCAD will debut new backlot sets in Savannah: 18th-century New England-style facades, a 1950s-era police station, a house of worship, and a mansion. In 2026, two industry-ready soundstages totaling nearly 9,000 square feet will open, along with 11 classrooms and additional backlot facades and interiors.
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