On Monday, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival schedule was released. The Gala Screening series is famous for showing many eventual Academy-Award nominees before their wide release. Here are all of the Gala Screenings and their accompanying trailers.
Roma
Cleo is a young domestic worker for a family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma in Mexico City. Delivering an artful love letter to the women who raised him, director Alfonso Cuarón draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amid the political turmoil of the 1970s.
Preceded by the Icon Award presentation to Emily Blunt and the Vanguard Award presentation to John Krasinski
Q-and-A session with actors Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira, and producer Gabriela Rodriguez following screening
Oct. 27 at 7 p.m.
Trustees Theater
The Kindergarten Teacher
Lisa Spinelli is a kindergarten teacher on Staten Island who yearns to live a life of art and intellectualism. She takes an evening poetry class where, despite her best efforts, her work is overlooked and misunderstood. When she overhears one of her five-year-old students, Jimmy, reciting an original poem in her classroom, she is floored. Convinced he is the equivalent of a young Mozart, she becomes obsessed with the child and embarks on a dangerous journey to nurture his talent.
Preceded by the Outstanding Achievement Award in Acting and Producing presentation to Maggie Gyllenhaal
Q-and-A session with and honoree Maggie Gyllenhaal following screening
Oct. 27 at 9:30 p.m.
Lucas Theater for the Arts
The Front Runner
Follow the rise and fall of Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, who captured the imagination of young voters and was considered the overwhelming front runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination before his campaign was sidelined by allegations of an extramarital relationship with Donna Rice.
Oct. 28 at 6 p.m.
Trustees Theater
Destroyer
When LAPD detective Erin Bell was a young cop, she went undercover as a gang member in the California desert with tragic results. Years later, the leader of that gang re-emerges. Bell must work her way back through the remaining members, and into her own history with them, to finally reckon with the demons that destroyed her past.
Preceded by the Outstanding Achievement in Cinema Award presentation to Armie Hammer
Q-and-A session with director Karyn Kusama following screening
Oct. 29 at 7 p.m.
Trustees Theater
Widows
Four women, each with debt left behind by their criminal husbands who were killed during a botched job, take fate into their own hands and conspire to forge a future on their own terms.
Oct. 30 at 7 p.m.
Trustees Theater
A Private War
Marie Colvin is one of the most celebrated war correspondents of our time. Her fearless and rebellious spirit drove her to the frontlines of conflicts across the globe, testing the limits between bravery and bravado. Colvin sacrificed loving relationships and her personal life suffered as the trauma she witnessed took its toll. Her mission to show the true cost of war led her and renowned war photographer Paul Conroy to embark on the most dangerous assignment of their lives in the besieged Syrian city of Homs.
Q-and-A session with director Matthew Heineman following screening
Oct. 30 at 9:30 p.m.
Lucas Theater for the Arts
Anna and the Apocalypse
A zombie apocalypse threatens the sleepy town of Little Haven during Christmas, forcing Anna and her friends to fight, slash and sing their way to survival as they face the undead in a desperate race to reach their loved ones. They soon discover that no one is safe in this new world, and with civilization falling apart around them, the only people they can truly rely on are each other.
Q-and-A session with director John McPhail following screening
Oct 31. at 9 p.m.
Lucas Theater for the Arts
If Beale Street Could Talk
Tish is a newly engaged Harlem woman who races against the clock to prove her lover’s innocence while carrying their first-born child to term. Her story is a celebration of love told through the eyes of a young couple and their families as they try to bring about justice and the promise of the American dream. Based on the James Baldwin novel.
Preceded by the Discovery Award presentation to KiKi Layne and Stephan James
Q-and-A session with director Barry Jenkins and honorees KiKi Layne and Stephan James following screening
Nov. 1 at 7 p.m.
Trustees Theater
Ben is Back
Ben Burns, 19, unexpectedly returns to his family’s suburban home on Christmas Eve morning. His mother is relieved and welcoming, but wary of her son staying clean. Over a turbulent 24 hours, new truths are revealed, and a mother’s dying love for her son is tested as she does everything in her power to keep him safe.
Q-and-A session with director Peter Hedges following screening
Nov. 1 at 9:30 p.m.
Lucas Theater for the Arts
The Favourite
While England is at war with the French in the early 1700s, a frail Queen Anne occupies the throne, and Lady Sarah governs the country while tending to Anne’s poor health and mercurial temper. Sarah takes new servant Abigail under her wing, and Abigail sees a chance to return to her aristocratic roots. As the politics of war become time-consuming for Sarah, Abigail steps into the breach as the Queen’s companion. Their burgeoning friendship gives her a chance to fulfill her ambitions.
Nov. 2 at 7 p.m.
Trustees Theater
Boy Erased
Jared is the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town who is outed to his parents at age 19. He is faced with an ultimatum: attend a gay conversion therapy program or be permanently exiled and shunned by his family, friends and faith. This is the true story of one young man’s struggle to find himself while being forced to question every aspect of his identity.
Nov. 2 at 9:30 p.m.
Lucas Theater for the Arts
Green Book
When Tony Lip, a bouncer from an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx, is hired to drive Dr. Don Shirley, a world-class black pianist, on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on the “Green Book” to guide them to the few establishments that were then safe for African-Americans. Confronted with racism and danger — as well as unexpected humanity and humor — they are forced to set aside differences to survive and thrive on the journey of a lifetime.
Q-and-A session with writers Nick Vallelonga and Brian Hayes Currie following screening
Nov. 3 at 7 p.m.
Trustees Theater
Georgia Micheals is the Media Content Producer of District. She is a junior Film and Television major who will graduate in 2020.
