“Redefining Identity, Imagination, and Storytelling Through the Female Lens”: Refinery29 + Level Forward Present Shatterbox at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival

“Come for the glitz. Stay for the substance,” really should be the tagline on my SCAD Savannah Film Festival T-shirt, I thought to myself during this year’s 22nd edition of the US’s largest university-run film festival. Along with the twice Oscar-nominated Alan Silvestri, attending to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for Composing, the fest invited a dozen high-profile and up-and-coming actors (Aldis Hodge, Daniel Kaluuya, Danielle Macdonald, Samantha Morton, Elisabeth Moss, Valerie Pachner, Olivia Wilde, Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein, Jharrel Jerome, Mena Massoud, and Camila Morrone) to accept an array of accolades. (It also hosted decidedly not-famous journos like myself at the Savannah-charming Perry Lane Hotel.)

But scratch below the Hollywood-tinged surface and you’ll find an event equally concerned with giving its mostly young, genuinely hungry-for-knowledge attendees with a behind-the-scenes education in the business of bringing dreams to the screen. And the festival’s refreshing focus on female empowerment was something to be lauded as well. For in addition to screening over 50 women-helmed films this year, not to mention showcasing the third edition of the always informative Wonder Women Panel series, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival highlighted a program titled “Refinery29 + Level Forward Present Shatterbox.” For those not in the know, Shatterbox launched back in 2016 (birthed by Refinery29 and Level Forward) in order to provide female shorts-makers with the means to tell the wide-ranging stories they’re fighting to tell.

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