Best of Fest
The Best of Fest event in the SCAD Savannah Film Festival is characterized by screening the best films, shorts, and documentaries that have won several competitions. This event hosted eight hours of feature films at the elegant Lucas Theater. Participants were welcome to come and go as they wished to see the wonders behind the best of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival.
10:00am – 1:30 pm
During the morning session of this Film Fest Event, the “best of short spotlight,” the “student animated shorts and films” were screened in addition to the “best documentary short and documentary feature.”
The Best of Short Spotlight featured several films: Growing Pains, Taffeta, The Night I left America, and Senior Prom. These short films were typical to share impactful thematics that left audiences with a tear or a smile on their faces. For example, the stop motion animated short film Growing Pains by Ruthie Harrison featured the story of a character going through depression. The protagonist’s illness is reflected in the little plant in his room that grows and does not let the character live his life fully. After struggling with the vines, the protagonist was able to take care of the plant, therefore taking care of his illness.
The Best of Student Shorts and Animated Shorts featured the following short films:
- Rubber Gun Club
- A Tiny Tale
- Ruby Days
- The Ocean Duck
- Migrants
- The Mechanical Dancer
- Under the Skin, the Bark
Highlighting the works of extraordinary art students, each of these student films received the following awards respectively:
- Best Student Short
- Best Student Animation
- Best Narrative Short by a SCAD Student
- Best Animation by a Scad Student
- Jury Award for Artistic Excellence
- Best Animated Short
- Jury Award for Artistic Excellence
The Best Documentary Short and Documentary Feature screened two of the most moving, impactful, and inspiring documentaries of the Film Festival: A Broken House (Best Documentary Short) and Medicine Man (Best Documentary Feature).
A Broken House tells the story of a Syrian architecture that reflects his home’s story through models and maquettes of destroyed houses. Inspired by his homesickness while facing the harsh reality of the Syrian war from afar, Mohamad Hafez created these maquettes so that people could understand the magnitude of destruction.
Medicine Man narrates the inspiring life of philanthropist Stan Brock, a cowboy and movie star that sacrificed the possessions he had to put himself at the service of others. During the beginning of his career, he worked as a cowboy in the Amazons. His adventure in the wilderness ended when the Wild Kingdom gave him the opportunity of being featured on Television. He gained fame and worked on several films. However, his work in the entertainment industry did not fill him as a human being. It is then when Stan Brock decides to create RAM (Remote Area Medical). In this free volunteer medical clinic, patients who cannot afford medical insurance can receive medical services for free.
1:30 pm – 5:00 pm
From 1:45 pm to 2:25 pm, the Best of Fest selections showed the best short films worldwide. The first screening was a film titled The Beyond, which showed the daily routine of a man working in a morgue during the Coronavirus pandemic. The film is about 15 minutes long and starts with the man riding to the hospital and getting ready for work with voice-over narration. He narrates how he decided to work in the hospital after getting into a motorcycle accident and having a new perspective on life. After he gets ready for work, we watch as he meticulously takes a body out of the morgue and cleans it. He narrates how it takes several hours to clean a single body during the wash, but now he is getting overwhelmed that people are dying at higher rates due to the pandemic.
The second short film shown during this time was titled Empiric. Before we fade into the picture, we are given information about the abortion laws of the time. It emphasizes how abortions were allowed if the child is expected to have mental challenges. This short film takes place in mid 60s Romania, and we follow a young woman as she returns home from work to take care of her mentally challenged younger brother. The woman goes to work in a fabric factory, and she is told that women are going to have inspections done on them. After completing her examination, the police storm her house and take her younger brother away before the scene cuts to black.
The third film shown was an American short titled Undercut. The film starts with a young girl getting injured while playing field hockey. She sees the team doctor and comes out crying, implying something significant occurred during the appointment. We aren’t told what happened, but we eventually discover that the doctor had abused her, and he had abused other girls on the team. The film ends when she finally opens up to one of her teammates, who had been pretty guarded towards her.
The final film during this time slot was called These Final Hours, and it won Best Global Short recognizing black voices. The film doesn’t have a straight narrative but does show an African American man walking around the city and discussing the issues facing the black community in a poetry style.
The subsequent two films shown were from the category of best narrative short and feature. The short film they showed was titled Feeling Through. The film starts with a young man trying to find a place to stay for the night by texting old friends on his phone. While walking through the streets, he comes across a man who is blind and deaf. He asks the protagonist via writing on a pad where he can find the bus station. The protagonist decides to help the man instead of going directly to a friend’s house, where she said he could stay the night. While waiting for the bus, the protagonist communicates with the blind man by drawing out letters on his hand. The two of them form a bond. They break away from the bus station to get a drink. The protagonist decides to take a $10 bill out of his wallet for himself. Once they return to the bus station, the protagonist looks through his notepad and sees that the blind man had been coming back from a date and that his name is Artie. The bus arrives, and the protagonist helps the blind man get on the bus. It is moving to see how he makes the bus driver promise to tap the blind man on the shoulder when he comes to his stop. The movie concludes with the protagonist walking away from the bus station and donating the $10 bill from Artie to a homeless man.
5:00 pm – 8:00 pm
After The Falconer, which was nominated as best narrative feature, another great film called “Uprooted: The journey of Jazz Dance” played.This film went in depth with describing where Jazz Dance originated from, what it is, and how it has changed over time with other dance influences. The film described dance as the “original art form” and that Jazz Dance is the “illegitimate child of dance.” Jazz Dance originated from slavery; it was the slave’s ways of expressing themselves and having something of their own. When slave owners heard the drums playing while the slaves danced to the beats, they took the drums away in an attempt to stop them from dancing and expressing themselves. In turn, this brought out a new form of dance that would be one of the forms known as “Jazz Dance” Taking away the drums, in turn, made the people create another way of making beats, using their bodies to make sounds. Over time, Jazz Dance took influences from other cultures, and often people can confuse it with other forms of dance. The basis of Jazz Dance is that it is sensual, powerful, and passionate. This film was an exciting take on dance that many people might not have heard about before. The way it was filmed was also beautiful and very engaging. If you’re interested in learning more about this film, you can do so here: https://uprootedfilm.com/
SCAD’s Film Fest had many excellent films, interviews, panels, and more relating to all different types of majors. If you weren’t able to visit it this year, you can read some of the articles we have written about here: https://scadrenderq.com/ In addition, SCAD District has covered multiple events that happened at the film fest. You can read their articles here: https://scaddistrict.com/