29th SCAD Savannah Film Festival Unveils Lineup with ‘Wild Horse Nine’ as Closing Film

The Savannah College of Art and Design’s 29th SCAD Savannah Film Festival, taking place October 24-31, revealed its 2026 lineup.

The festival will open with Anton Corbijn’s A Talent for Murder, with The Debut directed by Jesse Eisenberg screening as the Centerpiece Gala Presentation, and Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine as the closing night film.

The 2026 lineup includes Gala and Signature Screenings, Special Presentations, Professional and Student competition films, the Docs to Watch and Pixels and Pencils screening series, and the Behind Their Lens and Below the Line panel series.

The festival will present honors to Paul Bettany (Virtuoso Award), Meghann Fahy (Spotlight in Television Award), Ethan Hawke and Sterlin Harjo (Outstanding Collaboration in Television Award), Guitarricadelafuente (Discovery Award), Helen Mirren (Legend of Entertainment Award), Julianne Moore (Icon Award), Emmy Rossum (Outstanding Achievement in Television Award), and production designer Patrice Vermette (Variety Creative Impact in Production Design Award).

“This is one of those lineups where you look at the filmmakers and performers and realize just how much incredible work is happening across the industry right now,” said Christina Routhier, executive director of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival. “We have films from some of the world’s most distinctive talents, alongside bold work from emerging voices. What I love most is that our students get to experience it all by being in the room with these artists, hearing how the work came together, asking questions and making connections that can shape their own careers. That combination of great cinema, access, and discovery is what makes SCAD and our festival such a meaningful place to experience the year in film.”

Gala & Centerpiece Screenings

A Talent for Murder (Bleecker Street/LD Entertainment), dir. Anton Corbijn
Behemoth! (Searchlight Pictures), dir. Tony Gilroy
Being Heumann (Apple Original Films), dir. Siân Heder
Clarissa (Neon), dir. Arie Esiri, Chuko Esiri
Club Kid (A24), dir. Jordan Firstman
The Debut (A24), dir. Jesse Eisenberg
Elsinore (Focus Features), dir. Simon Stone
I Play Rocky (Amazon MGM), dir. Peter Farrelly
Ink (Netflix), dir. Danny Boyle
Josephine (Sumerian Pictures), dir. Beth de Araújo
La Bola Negra (Netflix), dir. Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo
The Liberation (Bleecker Street), dir. Guy Nattiv
The Mosquito Bowl (Netflix), dir. Peter Berg
Mouse (Independent Film Company), dirs. Kelly O’Sullivan, Alex Thompson
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York (Sony Pictures Classics), dir. Noah Segan
Paper Tiger (Neon), dir. James Gray
Tender Loving Care (Bleecker Street), dir. Mike Leigh
Wild Horse Nine (Searchlight Pictures), dir. Martin McDonagh

Special Presentations

All of a Sudden (Neon), dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Bedford Park (Sony Pictures Classics), dir. Stephanie Ahn
Bitter Christmas (Sony Pictures Classics), dir. Pedro Almodóvar
Bunker (Sony Pictures Classics), dir. Florian Zeller
Coward (Mubi), dir. Lukas Dhont
Everytime (1-2 Special), dir. Sandra Wollner
Fatherland (Mubi), dir. Paweł Pawlikowski
Fjord (Neon), dir. Cristian Mungiu
Gentle Monster (Netflix), dir. Marie Kreutzer
Iron Boy (Sony Pictures Classics), dir. Louis Clichy
La Gradiva (1-2 Special), dir. Marine Atlan
A Long Winter (Mubi), dir. Andrew Haigh
Look Back (GKIDS), dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
Minotaur (Mubi), dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev
Possible Love (Netflix), dir. Lee Chang-dong
Rose (Mubi), dir. Markus Schleinzer

Signature Screenings

Backrooms (A24), dir. Kane Parsons
Blue Heron (Janus), dir. Sophy Romvari
The Invite (A24), dir. Olivia Wilde
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Quiver), dir. Jonathan Kent
The Matrix (Warner Bros.), dir. Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
Misty Green (A24), dir. Chris Rock
The Odyssey (Universal Pictures), dir. Christopher Nolan
Project Hail Mary (Amazon MGM), dir. Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
SCAD Presents: A Mosquito in the Ear (Persimmon), dir. Nicola Rinciari
Sense and Sensibility (Focus Features), dir. Georgia Oakley
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother (Orion Pictures), dir. Bassam Tariq

After Dark Screenings

Clayface (Warner Bros.), dir. James Watkins
The Cycle (Shudder), dir. Jordan Downey
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Mubi), dir. Jane Schoenbrun

Docs to Watch

American Doctor (Watermelon), dir. Poh Si Teng
Avedon (Netflix), dir. Ron Howard
Cookie Queens (Roadside Attractions), dir. Alysa Nahmias
Everest: The Other Side (National Geographic), dir. Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
The Last First: Winter K2 (Apple Original Films), dir. Amir Bar-Lev
My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile, dir. Julia Loktev
Once Upon a Time in Harlem (Neon), dir. William Greaves, David Greaves
One in a Million (Frontline), dir. Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes
The Trial of Alec Baldwin (Abramorama), dir. Rory Kennedy
You Can See Everything (A24), dir. Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim

Pixels and Pencils: Top Animated Contenders

Forgotten Island (DreamWorks/Universal Pictures), writers/dirs. Joel Crawford and Januel P. Mercado
Hoppers (Disney/Pixar), dir. Daniel Chong
Ray Gunn (Netflix), dir. Brad Bird
Tangles (Independent Film Company), dir. Leah Nelson
Wildwood (Laika), dir. Travis Knight

Competition Films

Narrative Features

The Huntress (dir. Suzanne Andrews Correa)
One of Us (dir. Stefan van de Graaff)
Summer of Three (dir. Carlitos Ruiz-Ruiz)
Test (dir. Sam McConnell)

Documentary Features

Dernsie: The Amazing Life of Bruce Dern (dir. Mike Mendez)
The Lorraine (dir. Sam Pollard)
The Secret Reading Club of Kabul (dir. Shakiba Adil, Elina Hirvonen)
Uncle Roy (dir. Keri Pickett)

Student Shorts

Student Animated Shorts

Stone Lions Don’t Roar (dir. Le Hang Whalen)
Cardboard Heart (dir. Catalina Ferreira Martin)
Au gré de l’iode (dir. Léa Deprez, Pierre-Luis Bordes, Elliot Desmarets, Jeanne Finet)
Sunburn (dir. Esther Son)
Me in a Nutshell (dir. Joshua Higgs, Elena Krasteva)
Our Fleeting Soul (dir. Marin Caquez, Eva-Louise Moreau, Nour Kharraz)
Kenopsia (dir. Camille Redon, Sélène Le, Alice Hegymegi-Kiss, Gregoire Pezzulo, Fanny Belougne, Quentin Szczygiel, Adel Tebib)
CHAI (dir. Aryan Anand)
The Memory Clocksmith (dir. Jing Rickie Liu, Ellie Grace Colwill)
The Moon Stole My Stripes (dir. Sarah Buckley)
Sundown (dir. Jérémie Jayraj Itty, Inna Soroka, Julia Estrada Torres, Sammi Khuu)
The Nest (dir. Aurélien Coquery, Léa Kermanach, Soline Mauguin, Abel Tixador, Jean Baounon, Romane Selter-Fiette)
Moticos (dir. Paige Meakin)

Student Live-Action Shorts

KATTI (Unfriend) (dir. Kanishka Aggarwal)
See Me (dir. Cormac Fingeret)
Rio Negro (dir. Luke Cooper Escobar)
The View Was Everything (dir. Blais Cameron)
The Kalgan Horse (dir. Zichen Zhao)
Killer Of Men (dir. Jordan Betine)
Cadencia (dir. Paulís Cofresí)

SCAD Student Documentary Shorts

Cora Dale – A Rediscovered Harmony(dir. Silas Immanuel, Isabel Massud Faria De Souza)
Madame Marseille (dir. Brennen Fletcher)
With You (dir. Rebecca Floto)
Assemblé (dir. Lena Faeskorn)
From the Sound to the Sea (dir. Olivia Jackson)
Nanmoku (dir. Will Franz)
An Eternal Sound (dir. Ryan Broussard, Andrew Meriwether)

Shorts Programs

This year’s short film programs are:

Shorts Spotlight: Unsung Heroes

One Last Order (dir. Lauren DeFilippo, Sam Soko)
The Baddest Speechwriter of All (dir. Ben Proudfoot, Stephen Curry)

Ordinary, Everyday Monsters

He’s Out There (dir. Kurt Andrew Schneider, Sam A. Davis)
Plastic Pastures (dir. Darren Rubin)
Four Itchy Boys (dir. Andrew Hebert)
Bundle (dir. Carlo Milillo)
PRIME (dir. Meagan Coyle)
Meeting Your Maker (dir. Gregory Kasunich)
Scissors (dir. Hannah Alline)

Boundary Waters

DISC (dir. Blake Rice)
Enjoy Your Visit (dir. Erin Cramer)
What Have You Done, Zarina? (dir. Camila Sagyntkan)
Jane (dir. Eva Ravenal)
Because Today is Saturday (dir. Alice Eça Guimarães)
Selah (dir. Lara Everly)

Generation Next

Fletcher Street (dir. Jannat Gargi, David Darg)
Where We Played: Voices From the Fire(dir. Nat Wolff, Austin Cauldwell)
The Boys and the Bees (dir. Arielle C. Knight)
The Boy with the Dinosaur Head (dir. Imran J Khan)
Couture to the Max (dir. Dori Berinstein)

Hearts Across Time and Space

The Making of Taylor Square (dir. Caroline Josey Karoki)
The Second Life of Freddie Nole (dir. Dana Nachman)
32B (dir. Mohamed Taher)
The View (dir. Alli Sadegiani)
I Got You (dir. Jayme Lawson) — World Premiere
The Old Man and the Barber (dir. Nima Fakhrara)

One World

The Art of Sharing (dir. Ricardo Serena)
Buckskin (dir. Mars Verrone)
Listen (dir. Taliesin Black-Brown)
Plant Life (dir. Brett Marty, Josh Izenberg)
The Lost Snows of the Alps (dir. Kevin McCarey)
Dangerous Territory
A New Inferno (dir. Nita Blum, Jonathan Pickett)
80 is the Most Dangerous Anniversary(dir. Frank Chi) — World Premiere
Escalation (dir. AJ Schnack)
Apart (dir. Pola Maneli)
Your Attention, Please!
A Crime Across Four Landscapes (dir. Aidan Weaver)
A Man Who Takes Pictures of Flowers(dir. Yoo Lee)
Getar Hero (dir. Teddy Stern)
Them That’s Not (dir. Mekhai Lee)
FLESH IMPACT (dir. Maggie Gyllenhaal)
A Sisyphean Task (dir. Gus Flind-Henry, George Malcher)
Please (dir. Anna Mantzaris)
All the Love in the World…and Then Some
The Late in Life Guide to Modern Day Lesbianism (dir. Emelie Claxton, Molly Rangel)
Kiloran Bay (dir. Michael Bruce)
Perfect Love (dir. Kelly McCready) — World Premiere
Cheers Camden (dir. Joshua Black)
The Last Day of Byron Bray (dir. Michael Borrelli)
Callback (dir. Matthew Puccini)
Never Never Never (dir. John Sheedy)
Animated Delights
Living with a Visionary (dir. Stephen P. Neary)
How Not to Die on an Alien Planet (dir. Carlos Fernandez Puertolas)
Paper Daughter (dir. Cami Kwan)
Cartoon Physics (dir. Ru Kuwahata, Max Porter)
El Cuerpo del Cristo (dir. Bea Lema)
Virgin Fandango (dir. Marcy Page)
The Undying Pain of Existence (dir. Oscar Jacobson)
Sundays (dir. Ashley Gerst)
9 Million Colors (dir. Bára Anna)