Behind the Lens at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival 2023

As the US’s largest university-run fest, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival (October 21-28) smartly caters to an overwhelmingly collegiate audience, which means bringing in loads of celebrities for red carpet events (Kevin Bacon! Ava DuVernay! Eva Longoria!) balanced with veteran Hollywood craftspeople for numerous nuts and bolts panels (this year’s Artisans series included “The Creators of Worlds: The Artisans of Oppenheimer”). Not to mention there’s a puppy dog enthusiasm with which these young industry aspirants gobble up the eight-day “celebration of cinematic excellence.” It’s both contagious and, for someone like me long past their dorm room years, dauntingly exhausting. (FOMO on steroids is the cliche that most comes to mind.) That said, even the most jaded critic (i.e., me) can be impressed. Todd Haynes and Christine Vachon showed up this 26th edition for the “homecoming” of their Savannah-shot May December, which boasted an impressive 80-plus Savannah College of Art and Design students, faculty and alum behind the scenes. And also in front of the lens — D.W. Moffett, who plays Tom Atherton, ex to Julianne Moore’s Gracie, is the chair of film and television at the school. Moffett also played host to our (too-early-on-a-Monday-morning) Hollywood backlot tour, the centerpiece of which was an impressive replica of...Savannah. (Luckily, there was also enough coffee and catering for my brain to digest this surreal touch.)

To read the rest of my coverage visit Filmmaker magazine.