The Kids Are All Right: The 29th SCAD Savannah Film Festival
As it has in years past, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival (October 24-31) featured a mix of sold-out screenings, bespoke panels and workshops (a new “Below the Line: The Art of Musical Storytelling” talk showcased members of the Alliance of Women Film Composers), and Hollywood celebrities posing for photos on ubiquitous red carpets. Kicking things off this 29th edition was none other than Helen Mirren, who fittingly received the Legend of Entertainment Award after attending opening night’s Anton Corbijn thriller A Talent for Murder, in which the Oscar-winning actress plays the Ripley anthology writer Patricia Highsmith. Other heavy-hitting honorees included Danny Boyle (Maverick Director Award), James Gray (Auteur Award), Jessica Lange (Lifetime Achievement Award), Julianne Moore (Icon Award), Keanu Reeves (Legend of Cinema Award), Seth Rogen (Spotlight Award), John Leguizamo (Distinguished Performance Award) and Sterlin Harjo and Ethan Hawke (Outstanding Collaboration in Television Award). It’s a spectacularly impressive who’s who list, especially considering that the world’s largest university-run film festival is aimed squarely at an audience overwhelmingly comprised of artsy college kids. (The budding cinephiles are also extremely eager and dedicated, going so far as to camp out at the box office the day before tickets go on sale.)
Indeed, one had to look (or rather listen) no further than the Docs to Watch Directors Roundtable, presented by The Hollywood Reporter and moderated by THR’s Executive Editor of Awards Scott Feinberg, to note the digital native demographic. Of the ten talented filmmakers onstage, which included Rory Kennedy (The Trial of Alec Baldwin) and Julia Loktev (My Undesirable Friends: Part II—Exile), the panelist to receive the most introductory applause wasn’t Ron Howard (Avedon) but rather Nathan Fielder (You Can See Everything). (Though Fielder was certainly the most entertaining of the bunch. The director-actor-comedian spoke of long having the sense that what he was seeing in today’s AI-manipulated world wasn’t real, but until he met Elizabeth Holmes hadn’t encountered that encapsulated in a human being.)
Then there was the TV Sidebar screening of an episode from The Lowdown, after which Sterlin Harjo and Ethan Hawke appeared for a behind-the-scenes anecdote-filled Q&A. While both were met with warm applause, it was clear the clapping came from viewers more familiar with Harjo’s Reservation Dogs than with Hawke’s collaborations with Linklater. In fact, one had to wonder if the intimidating awe that Tommy Lee Jones, who plays Hawke’s character’s dad in the FX series, conjured in the duo even registered with the young audience. Noting that no detail escaped the consummate craftsman’s eye, Harjo recalled Jones wondering why a ledger had been placed on set. When a helpful crew member offered to move the prop, the Academy Award-winning actor simply retorted, “No, I didn’t ask you to move it. I asked why it’s there.”
On the other hand, actor-musician Keanu Reeves, who appeared on a panel titled “The World of BRZRKR” to discuss his acclaimed comic book series (and is six years older than Hawke), perhaps unsurprisingly has a rabidly enthusiastic Gen Z fanbase. And while The Matrix first hit screens before the SCAD audience was even born, there was no shortage of students decked out as Neo, Morpheus and Trinity for the Signature Screening of the Wachowskis’ blockbuster the day before Halloween. Indeed, considering that Oppenheim and Fielder’s You Can See Everything is now among the highest-grossing documentaries of all time, it seems that discovering reality might be a lie is, for better or worse, a forever fresh theme that knows no generational bounds.
– Lauren Wissot
