The SCAD Savannah Film Festival will present esteemed casting director Cassandra Kulukundis with the Outstanding Achievement in Casting Award for her work on One Battle After Another, written, directed and produced by Paul Thomas Anderson. The award will be presented at a screening of the acclaimed Warner Bros. Pictures’ film on Sunday, Oct. 26 and include a conversation moderated by Gold Derby editor-in-chief Debra Birnbaum. The festival runs Oct. 25 through Nov. 1.
Kulukundis has worked extensively with filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, most recently on his acclaimed One Battle After Another starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti. Her previous work with Anderson includes the films Licorice Pizza, Phantom Thread, The Master, There Will Be Blood, Punch-Drunk Love, Magnolia, and Boogie Nights. In 2015, she was honored with the Film Independent Spirit Awards’ Robert Altman Award for her work in casting Anderson’s Inherent Vice. Kulukundis has also cast such lauded films as Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist and Vox Lux, Spike Jonze’s Her, David Mamet’s Spartan, Terry Zwigoff’s Art School Confidential and Ghost World, Danny Leiner’s Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Billy Ray’s Breach and Shattered Glass, and more. In addition to casting, she has also produced a number a films, among them Vox Lux, Ned Benson’s The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby trilogy and The Greatest Hits, Ryan Eggold’s Literally, Right Before Aaron, as well as A Late Quartet, The Elephant King, Jailbait, and more.
Kulukundis will receive the festival’s first award for casting directors in its 28-year history. SCAD is the only university that has on-site, professionally run casting offices and offers a casting minor. With locations in Savannah and Atlanta, the SCAD Casting Office has connected nearly 1,000 SCAD students to productions in the powerhouse film and television industry in Georgia, New York, Los Angeles, and other global markets. Led by Andra Reeve-Rabb, dean of the SCAD School of Film and Acting and former director of CBS primetime casting in New York, the SCAD Casting Office also places students in internships with major networks and the industry’s leading casting directors and has helped cast more than 600 SCAD student films, providing invaluable hands-on training to SCAD students minoring in casting that prepares them to step into the world of professional casting.
Additionally, the festival has added a screening of the Independent Film Company’s film The Plague Tuesday, Oct. 28, at SCAD Museum of Art, including a Q&A with director and writer Charlie Polinger. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and tells the story of a socially anxious 12-year-old at all-boys water polo camp, who is pulled into a cruel tradition targeting an outcast with an illness they call “The Plague.”
Additional festival programming includes the Opening Night screening of Eternity, where actor Miles Teller will receive the Distinguished Performance Award and co-star and festival honored guest Da’Vine Joy Randolph will join him onstage. Song Sung Blue is the festival’s Centerpiece Gala screening, with director Craig Brewer to receive the Spotlight Director Award. The festival will close with director Rian Johnson receiving the Outstanding Achievement in Directing Award at a screening of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.
They will join previously announced festival honorees: Luminary Award recipients Will Arnett (Is This Thing On?) and Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You); Rising Star Award recipient Miles Caton (Sinners); International Auteur Award recipient Park Chan-wook (No Other Choice); Vanguard Director Award recipient Jon M. Chu (Wicked: For Good); Breakthrough Performance Award recipient Zoey Deutch (Nouvelle Vague); Vanguard Award recipients Joel Edgerton (Train Dreams) and Amanda Seyfried (The Testament of Ann Lee); Outstanding Achievement in Television Award recipient Dakota Fanning (All Her Fault); Outstanding Achievement in Cinema Award recipient Brendan Fraser (Rental Family); Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Mark Hamill (The Life of Chuck); Icon Award recipient Oscar Isaac (Frankenstein); Discovery Award recipient Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value); Legend of Cinema Award recipient Spike Lee (Highest 2 Lowest); Virtuoso Award recipient Jennifer Lopez (Kiss of the Spider Woman); Lumiere Award recipient Dylan O’Brien (Twinless); Maverick Director Award recipient Benny Safdie (The Smashing Machine); Rising Star Director Award recipient Kristen Stewart (The Chronology of Water); Spotlight Award recipient Sydney Sweeney (Christy); and Distinguished Performance Award recipient Tessa Thompson (Hedda). The EW Breaking Big Awards and Panel include Julia Butters (Freakier Friday), Tati Gabrielle (The Last of Us), Tonatiuh (Kiss of the Spider Woman), Grace Van Patten (The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox/Tell Me Lies), and Tyriq Withers (Him).
