Cassandra Kulukundis to Receive Outstanding Achievement in Casting Award for 'One Battle After Another' at SCAD Savannah Film Festival

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA (Oct. 8, 2025) — 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).

About the SCAD Savannah Film Festival

Presented by the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), the SCAD Savannah Film Festival is filled with cinematic creativity from award-winning professionals and emerging student filmmakers. Each year, more than 75,000 people attend the eight-day festival. The festival has become a distinguished stop on the road to the Academy Awards, hosting exclusive screenings, competition films, feature films, documentaries, shorts, animated films, panel discussions, and workshops at SCAD's historic theaters and industry-leading studio spaces. Presented in Savannah, a premier film hub in the Southeast, the festival promotes quality movies produced by independent and studio filmmakers.

Follow the festival on Facebook, Instagram, Letterboxd, and TikTok @savfilmfest. For additional information and tickets, visit filmfest.scad.edu.

SCAD: The University for Creative Careers

SCAD is a private, nonprofit, accredited university, offering 100 graduate and undergraduate degree programs across locations in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; Lacoste, France; and online via SCADnow. SCAD enrolls approximately 18,500 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 100 countries. The future-minded SCAD curriculum engages professional-level technology and myriad advanced learning resources, affording students opportunities for internships, professional certifications, and real-world assignments with corporate partners through SCADpro, the university’s renowned research lab and prototype generator. SCAD has earned top rankings for degree programs in interior design, architecture, film, fashion, digital media, and more. Career success is woven into every fiber of the university, resulting in a superior alumni employment rate. A 2025 study found that 99% of recent SCAD graduates were employed, pursuing further education, or both within 12 months of graduation. SCAD provides students and alumni with ongoing career support through personal coaching, alumni programs, a professional presentation studio, and more. Visit scad.edu.

About the SCAD School of Film and Acting

With resources that rival Hollywood studios — including stunning locations, two professionally run casting offices, stellar film and television festivals, and award-winning faculty from film, television, Broadway, and beyond — the SCAD School of Film and Acting is the ideal place for students to launch into the multibillion-dollar film and television industry. The SCAD acting, cinematography, editing, film and television, production design, and sound design programs prepare students to collaborate and command roles on stage, screen, and behind the scenes through unparalleled instruction and real-world experience on productions for short films, live performances, TV sitcoms, dramatic series, music videos, commercials, and more.

SCAD students pursuing careers in film, entertainment, and media find a home base at SCAD Film Studios in Savannah, the largest and most comprehensive university film studio complex in higher education. This 11-acre studio complex includes a Hollywood-style backlot with more than 40 street facades and 8,000 square feet of dressed interiors, a magnificent 17,000-square-foot facility with a production scene shop and costume sewing labs, and a next-generation LED volume stage for virtual productions. The complex is complemented by SCAD Film Studios in Atlanta, the site of the university's second LED volume stage, as well as three stories of editing suites and broadcast studios. At SCAD, every set, stage, and studio is a classroom.

During the 2025 festival, SCAD will debut new backlot sets in Savannah: 18th-century New England-style facades, a 1950s-era police station, a house of worship, and a mansion. In 2026, two industry-ready soundstages totaling nearly 9,000 square feet will open, along with 11 classrooms and additional backlot facades and interiors.

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