‘The Mechanical Dancer,’ ‘A Tiny Tale,’ and ‘The Ocean Duck’ take top animated short honors at the 24th annual event; 29 films were awarded from 104 chosen to compete across a host of categories.
The Savannah College of Art and Design has announced the award winners for the 24th annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival. The festival screened more than 150 films, including 45 narrative films, 15 documentary films, and 97 shorts, with 14 world premieres in 2021.
29 awards were announced from the 104 films chosen to compete in categories for narrative features, documentary features, professional shorts, animated shorts, documentary shorts, student shorts, Global Shorts Forum, and Shorts Spotlight.
The list of winners is as follows:
Professional Competition
- Best Animated Short – The Mechanical Dancer, directed by Jenna Jaillet.
- Best Documentary Feature – Medicine Man: The Stan Brock Story, directed by Paul Michael Angell.
- Best Documentary Short – A Broken House, directed by Jimmy Goldblum.
- Best Narrative Short – Feeling Through, directed by Doug Roland.
- Best Narrative Feature – The Falconer, directed by Adam Sjöberg and Seanne Winslow.
- Best Director – Adam Sjöberg and Seanne Winslow, The Falconer.
- Best Editing – Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance, directed by Khadifa Wong.
- Jury Award for Excellence in Storytelling – Porcupine, directed by M. Cahill.
- Jury Award for Best Performance – Jena Malone, Porcupine.
- Jury Award for Global Impact – WOMB: Women of My Billion, directed by Ajitesh Sharma.
- Jury Award for Artistic Excellence – Under the Skin, the Bark, directed by Franck Dion.
Student Competition
- Best Narrative Short Directed by a SCAD Student – Ruby Days, directed by Noah Wong.
- Best Student Short – Rubber Gun Club, directed by Alex Bendo.
- Best Student Animation – A Tiny Tale, directed by Sylvain Civillier, Chloé Bourdic Théophile Coursimault, Noémie Halberstam, Maÿlis Mosny, and Zijing Ye.
- Best Animation by a SCAD Student – The Ocean Duck, directed by Huda Razzak.
- Student Shorts Jury Award for Artistic Excellence – Migrants, directed by Hugo Caby, Antoine Dupriez, Aubin Kubiak, Lucas Lermytte, and Zoé Devise.
Global Shorts Forum
- Global Shorts Forum Best of Show – These Final Hours, directed by Lionel Coleman.
- Best Global Short: Black Voices – These Final Hours, directed by Lionel Coleman.
- Best Global Short: HERStory – Empiric, directed by Ioana Turcan.
- Best Global Short: Tales from the Pandemic – The Beyond, directed by Daniel Maurer.
- Best Narrative Short – Undercut, directed by Kelly Pike.
- Global Impact Award – COVID-19 New Orleans, directed by Nilanjan Neil Lahiri and N. Shanmuga Sundaram.
- Global Impact Award – Wide Open Dreams, directed by Paulina Jaskiewicz.
- Global Shorts Forum Jury Award – Peek-A-Boom, directed by Maya Zankoul and Toni Yammine.
Shorts Spotlight
- Shorts Spotlight Best of Show – Senior Prom, directed by Luisa Conlon.
- Shorts Spotlight Best Short: Pride Parade – Taffeta, directed by Lovell Holder.
- Shorts Spotlight Best Short: This American Life – The Night I Left America, directed by Laki Karavias.
- Shorts Spotlight Best Short: Trigger Warnings – Growing Pains, directed by Ruthie Harrison.
- Shorts Spotlight Jury Award for Excellence in Storytelling – Break Any Spell, directed by Anton Jøsef.
The 2021 festival's professional jury members included actor and SCAD alum Kayli Carter, producer and director Annabel Jankel, BlackFilmandTV.com founder and editor Wilson Morales, CinemaBlend managing director Sean O'Connell, and actor and producer Molly C. Quinn.
Source: SCAD Savannah Film Festival 2021
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
