Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) adds award tributes for Simon Rex and Kodi Smit-McPhee

Entertainment Weekly’s Breaking Big honorees include Alaqua Cox, Caleb McLaughlin, Saniyya Sidney, and Suzanna Son

The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) today announces additional honorees and programming for the 24th annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival, taking place in person and virtually October 23–30, 2021. Simon Rex (Red Rocket) will receive the Spotlight Award and Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog) will receive the Discovery Award during their respective film screenings at the festival.

They join previously announced honorees Kenneth Branagh, Adrien Brody, Clifton Collins Jr., Aunjanue Ellis, Harry Gregson-Williams, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Mike Mills, Ruth Negga, Dylan Penn, Sandy Powell, and Odessa Young. Festival media partner Entertainment Weekly will also host the Breaking Big Awards and Panel on Friday, Oct. 29.

This year’s honorees include Alaqua Cox (Hawkeye), Caleb McLaughlin (Concrete Cowboy, Stranger Things), Saniyya Sidney (King Richard), and Suzanna Son (Red Rocket), who will participate in a panel discussion and receive their awards. Entertainment Weekly will also host a photo and interview studio for talent and moderate select panels.

Celebrating its 24th year, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival and competitions provide SCAD students with opportunities as unique as the selected films. This year, the festival received more than 1,500 submissions for the competition series. During the festival, students from every academic discipline connect with leaders from the entertainment industry through master classes, coffee talks, lectures, workshops, and panel discussions. Savannah, a premier film hub in the Southeast, promotes quality movies produced by independent and studio filmmakers.

Photos: A24; Kirsty Griffin/Netflix

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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