SCAD Savannah Film Festival teams with Amazon Studios for LGBTQIA+ short film competition

The 2023 SCAD Savannah Film Festival (SAVFF) announced today that it will team with Amazon Studios to created a dedicated SAVFF LGBTQIA+ Short Film Competition, and will premiere during the 26th edition of the festival, which runs October 21–28, 2023.

The collaboration aims to create a platform for emerging queer filmmakers to share their stories and gain mentorship and exposure, while onsite programming will offer networking and educational opportunities and drive conversation around equitable filmmaking. It is a practical application of Amazon Studios’ Inclusion Policy and Playbook, which builds DEIA into the content greenlight process and invests in programs to grow talent from historically excluded communities at all stages of the career pathway.

“At Amazon Studios we have long prioritized amplifying underrepresented voices; it is part of the equity work we are committed to doing,” said Latasha Gillespie, Global Head of DEIA for Amazon Studios and Prime Video. “We recognize the joy, complexity and power of LGBTQIA+ storytelling and we are thrilled to support these filmmakers through our collaboration with SCAD.”

“We are grateful that Amazon Studios has joined us to help move the needle on this very critical issue,” said SCAD Savannah Film Festival executive director Christina Routhier. “This competition and its mentorship effect can help the next generation of LGBTQ+ storytellers achieve new creative and professional goals and build sustainable careers, and we hope to inspire other institutions and festivals to follow our lead with similar dedicated programs.”

As the official presenting sponsor of the SAVFF LGBTQ+ Short Film Competition, Amazon Studios will donate $10,000 for the jury-awarded Best Overall Film and $5,000 for an Audience Award, with winners announced during the official Festival Awards Brunch. Also at the festival, Amazon Studios will lead a panel discussion on the future of LGBTQIA+ storytelling, host educational opportunities for SCAD students and alumni as well as a networking session for filmmakers. 

To submit a film to the SAVFF LGBTQIA+ Short Film Competition, a director, writer, or producer contributing to the film must identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Films should be under 40 minutes in length and represent excellence in storytelling and execution. Submitted films can be narrative or documentary formats, reflecting unique insight into LGBTQIA+ themes, issues, or ideas. The film’s content should embody a personal connection to the subject and showcase the filmmaker’s artistic approach to visual storytelling. Interested filmmakers can submit their film to the competition via FilmFreeway.

The SCAD Savannah Film Festival and its competitions provide SCAD students with opportunities as unique as the selected films. This year, the festival received more than 1,700 film submissions for competition series. During the festival, students from every academic discipline connect with leaders from the entertainment industry in master classes, coffee talks, lectures, workshops, and panel discussions. Presented each year in Savannah, a premier film hub in the Southeast, the festival promotes quality movies produced by independent and studio filmmakers. SCAD the university is a private, nonprofit, accredited university, offering more than 100 graduate and undergraduate degree programs across locations in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; Lacoste, France; and online via SCADnow.

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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), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) 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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