How SCAD Savannah Film Festival nabs big name talent year after year
For nearly 30 years, as the leaves begin to turn and the heat breaks in October, thousands of people have poured into coastal Georgia for a week of screening the year’s most anticipated films.
Theaters fill out, hotel rooms are booked up and nearby bars and restaurants see a spike in business for the SCAD Savannah Film Festival. It is the marquee event hosted by the arts and design school and the largest film festival held in Georgia annually, attracting more than 60,000 visitors to Savannah in recent years. It’s also the largest university-run film festival in the country.
Fast approaching three decades, the festival, starting Saturday, has announced its largest slate yet, buoyed by appearances from actors, directors and other above-the-line crew members who are receiving awards, leading panels or participating in Q&As.
This year, the festival will screen 167 titles, up from 162 the previous year, many of which have debuted or competed at prestigious international film festivals such as Cannes or Venice. The 2025 honorees include South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook, who will receive the International Auteur award; Spike Lee, who will receive the Legend of Cinema award; and Sydney Sweeney, who will receive the Spotlight award. Other honorees include actor Oscar Isaac, “Knives Out” director Rian Johnson, actress Jennifer Lopez and actor Will Arnett.
With just days before Saturday’s opening, organizers are finishing up the preparations.
“It’s a little nutty over here,” said Christina Routhier, the executive and artistic director of the festival.
The festival has come a long way from its beginnings in 1997, but it has long been a bit of a cultural phenomenon in the city, growing as the school itself expanded its enrollment. It’s difficult to tie an exact economic impact number to the festival, but spending by visitors to SCAD-affiliated events totaled more than $127.8 million in Georgia in fiscal year 2023, according to a study from consultancy firm Tripp Umbach.
Joseph Marinelli, the president and CEO of Visit Savannah, has lived in the city for 19 years, and he said the festival has been a big deal for all 19. He likens it to the Savannah Bananas, the city’s digitally savvy barnstorming baseball team that has generated a national cult following over the past few years.
“The fact that the Savannah Film Festival has become such a big deal gives our city nice exposure, the kind of exposure we want to have in (out-of-town) circles,” Marinelli said.
Passes are now a hot commodity. This year, the passes, which start at $175 and go up to $550 for access to all screenings and panels, sold out in early October. Students, who receive discounted rates on the festival’s gala screenings, began lining up for tickets this year roughly two days before they went on sale.
Planning starts the day after the previous year’s festival, Routhier said. The submission portals for the competition series will open in December, and programmers will begin to review the films that same month. The festival typically receives about 5,000 entries per year.
Programming for the gala films, which are the festival’s red carpet premiere screenings with special guests, are more of an intense process that begins around May after the Cannes Film Festival. Both Routhier and lead programmer Meg Weichman will meet with studios and distributors to discuss potential films that are ready to screen at the festival, along with any talent or filmmakers who can attend to promote them.
In recent years, the gala screenings have included Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers,” Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Red Rocket,” Sean Baker’s film before taking best director for “Anora” at the 2025 Academy Awards.
Routhier and her colleagues have a ritual they follow every year before passes go on sale of predicting which screening will sell out first. This year, their guess was Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein.”
“Usually we pretty much know,” Routhier said. “But sometimes they surprise us.”
Months closer to the start of the festival, organizers are securing honorees, determining final panel topics and laying out the schedule. The organizers will select honorees based on the standout performances they identify in the films they watch, Routhier said. Agents, publicists and studio representatives will also pitch their clients.
Students are also involved in organizing the festival. Each winter, the school has a cohort of programming interns who help with reviewing competition series entries. Routhier said the school also has more than 700 student volunteers that man over 150 events and screenings.
Over the past decade, the festival organizers have begun to bring in more industry professionals and studio heads who are involved in the inner workings of the film and television industry. This has laid a foundation to bring the festival up to the next level, Routhier said.
The festival’s plans for growth have yet to be codified. Routhier thinks it doesn’t have much room to grow further, unless they start to organize screenings at 6 a.m. But the festival wants to continue to deepen its relationships with studios, streamers and guilds, as well as expand further into other media, like television or animation.
About the Author
Savannah Sicurella is an entertainment business reporter with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
