SCAD Savannah Film Festival Announces 2025 Audience and Competition Award Winners

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA (Nov. 3, 2025)—The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) today announced the award winners for the 28th annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival. A key stop on the festival circuit leading up to the Academy Awards, the 2025 SCAD Savannah Film Festival screened 167 films, including 56 narrative feature films, 16 documentary feature films, 96 short films, and seven world premieres and three U.S. premieres.

Frankenstein was this year’s Audience Award winner, as selected by festival attendees. Actor Oscar Issac was in attendance for the sold-out screening and received the festival’s Icon Award. Rental Family was the runner-up, with Brendan Fraser, director Hikari, and composer Alex Somers in attendance. Fraser was honored with the Outstanding Achievement in Cinema Award at the screening. Additionally, No Other Choice was this year’s International Audience Award Winner. Director Park Chan-wook was in attendance for the screening, where he received the International Auteur Award.

Out of more than 2,500 submissions, 102 films were chosen to compete in competition categories, including Narrative Features, Documentary Features, Professional Shorts, Animated Shorts, Student Shorts, Shorts Spotlight, and the Global Shorts Forum. Jurors viewed and selected 24 awards across the following categories:

Professional Competition

• Best Professional Short — Rise, dir. Jessica J. Rowlands
• Best Narrative Feature — Charliebird, dir. Libby Ewing
• Best Documentary Feature — Yanuni, dir. Richard Ladkani
• Best Director — Richard Ladkani, Yanuni
• Best Cinematography — The Singers, dir. Sam Davis
• Jury Award for Social Impact — All the Empty Rooms, dir. Joshua Seftel
• Jury Award for Ensemble Acting — Beyond Silence (cast members Henrianne Jansen, Sigrid ten Napel, and Tamar van den Dop)

This year’s Best Professional Short (Rise), Best Narrative Feature (Charliebird), and Best Documentary Feature (Yanuni) winners will each receive a $500 cash prize, sponsored by Frankfurt Kurnit. The film awarded Best Cinematography (The Singers) will receive a $1,000 cash prize, sponsored by ShotDeck.

The 2025 festival's professional jury members included Alex Barasch (journalist, The New Yorker), Clifton Collins, Jr. (actor), Leslye Headland (director and writer), Richard Lawson (critic), and Mary Neely (actor, producer and writer).

Katie Spikes Legacy Award Scholarship

Katie Spikes was a senior story editor for CBS' 60 Minutes and a beloved friend of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival for many years. After her passing in 2023, the Katie Spikes Legacy Scholarship was created to honor excellence in filmmaking by a SCAD student.

• Award Winner — Drag Me to Church, dir. Isabella Sullivan (B.F.A., film and television, 2025)

This year’s winner will receive a $7,500 cash prize. The 2025 festival's Katie Spikes Legacy jury members include June Dowad (partner, Worldwide Production Agency), Amy Grey (president, Dish Communications), Lynn Hirshfield (producer), Alison Owen (film and television producer), Myra Scheer (creative consultant and SiriusXM co-host), Juliet Blake (producer, TED), and Andy Cohen (producer, Grade A Entertainment).

Student and Animated Shorts

• Best Professional Animation — Murmuration, dir. Janneke Swinkels and Tim Frijsinger
• Jury Award for Environmental Impact — Snow Bear, dir. Aaron Blaise
• Best Student Animation — Dragfox, dir. Lisa Ott
• Best Student Short — Breastmilk, dir. Ifeyinwa Arinze

This year’s Best Professional Animation winner (Murmuration) will receive a cash prize of $500 and the Best Student Animation winner (Dragfox) and Best Student Short winner (Breastmilk) will each receive a cash prize of $250, sponsored by Frankfurt Kurnit.

The 2025 festival's Shorts Spotlight jury members included Josh Beveridge (animation supervisor, Sony Pictures Imageworks), Rob Dressel (director of cinematography and layout, Disney), Abby Ryder Fortson (actor), Daria Khil (story artist, DreamWorks), Mandy Tankerson (senior vice president and head of production, Sony Pictures Imageworks), and Daniel Talbott (writer, director, and producer).

Global Shorts Forum

• Best Global Short — The Return, dir. Jeremy S. Levine
• Best Global Short: For the Love of Sport — Hoops, Hopes, & Dreams, dir. Glenn Kaino
• Best Global Short: Portraits of Perseverance — The Return, dir. Jeremy S. Levine
• Best Global Short: A Place in This World — Largo, dir. Salvatore Scarpa and Max Burgoyne
• Jury Award: Savannah Spotlight — Art with Every Breath, dir. Caroline Josey Karoki
• Jury Award: Humanitarian Spirit Award — Inside the Valley Sings, dir. Nathan Fagan
• Jury Award: Excellence in Acting — Bonnie Hellman, Susana, dir. Gerardo Coello Escalante

The 2025 festival's Global Shorts Forum jury members included Chet Mehta (founder and CEO, PR Department), Blake Pickens (vice president, Impact Guild), and Jenelle Riley (deputy awards and features editor, Variety).

Shorts Spotlight

• Best Shorts Spotlight — Two People Exchanging Saliva, dir. Alexandre Singh and Natalie Musteata
• Best Shorts Spotlight: Dearest Daughter —Miriam, dir. Josie Andrews
• Best Shorts Spotlight: Reality Askew in Black & White — Two People Exchanging Saliva, dir. Alexandre Singh and Natalie Musteata
• Best Shorts Spotlight: Sweetness in the Bitter — The Second Time Around, dir. Jack Howard
• Best Shorts Spotlight: After Dark: The Horror Within — The Pearl Comb, dir. Ali Cook
• Special Jury Award for Excellence in Animation — Playing God, dir. Matteo Burani
• Special Jury Award for Excellence in Acting — Pearl Scarlett Gold, Miriam, dir. Josie Andrews
• Human Spirit Jury Award — Inside, The Valley Sings, dir. Nathan Fagan

The 2025 festival's Shorts Spotlight jury members included Shane Marshall Brown (co-president, The Press Room), Elizabeth Kizer (editor, Mad Law Media), and Sam Lansky (freelance writer).

This year, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival honored Dakota Fanning (Outstanding Achievement in Television Award), Spike Lee (Legend of Cinema Award), Sydney Sweeney (Spotlight Award), Brendan Fraser (Outstanding Achievement in Cinema Award), Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Discovery Award), Craig Brewer (Spotlight Director Award), Miles Teller (Distinguished Performance Award), Rose Byrne (Luminary Award), Cassandra Kulukundis (Outstanding Achievement in Casting Award), Park Chan-wook (Auteur Award), Mark Hamill (Lifetime Achievement Award), Benny Safdie (Maverick Award), Zoey Deutch (Breakthrough Performance Award), Miles Caton (Rising Star Award), Rian Johnson (Outstanding Achievement in Directing Award), Oscar Isaac (Icon Award), Dylan O’Brien (Lumiere Award), Will Arnett (Luminary Award), Jon M. Chu (Vanguard Director Award), Regina Hall (Gold Derby Spotlight Award), Amanda Seyfried (Vanguard Award), Joel Edgerton (Vanguard Award), Kristen Stewart (Rising Star Director Award), and Tessa Thompson (Distinguished Performance Award).

Variety, in partnership with the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, feted Hannah Beachler with the Variety Creative Impact in Production Design Award at a screening of Sinners. Entertainment Weekly also celebrated their Breaking Big honorees in 2025, actors Julia Butters, Tati Gabrielle, Tonatiuh, Grace Van Patten, and Tyriq Withers.

Follow the festival on Facebook, Instagram, Letterboxd, and TikTok @savfilmfest. For additional information and tickets, visit filmfest.scad.edu.
 

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.
 

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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