Helen Mirren Receives Legend of Entertainment Award as the SCAD Savannah Film Festival Opens

SAVANNAH, Ga. — The 29th SCAD Savannah Film Festival opened on Saturday, October 24, in Savannah, Georgia, and its first honor went to Helen Mirren, who received the festival’s Legend of Entertainment Award on opening night, WTOC reported. Mirren accepted the award at the gala screening of A Talent for Murder, the thriller in which she co-stars with Alden Ehrenreich.

The festival, run by the Savannah College of Art and Design, is the largest university-run film festival in the nation, according to WTOC, and it runs for eight days through Saturday, October 31. This year’s program includes roughly 70 feature films, 84 short films in 13 blocks and four television shows presented as part of its TV Sidebar, Folio Weekly reported ahead of the opening.

Speaking to WTOC on the red carpet, Mirren said the first thing she thought when she learned of the honor was that she would get to return to Savannah. “Oh, great I get to go to Savannah. Because it’s a city that I love, and I haven’t been here for such a long time. I came I think in the late 80s, I’ve only been here once before, and I loved it,” she said. WTOC also reported that Mirren said she knows Stratton Leopold, the owner of Leopold’s Ice Cream, and spotted the shop for the first time while speaking with the station.

Mirren shared advice with SCAD students and other young creatives at the event, WTOC reported. “A lot of it is luck, a lot of it is also the way you approach work, and the way you approach people you collaborate with,” she said. “I do believe in working hard.”

She was more cautious about another piece of standard advice. “I am very worried about ‘follow your dream,’ that worries me because of course it’s great to dream, but sometimes it is just that, it is just a dream,” Mirren told WTOC, saying she had seen people throw their lives away trying to pursue a fantasy. She encouraged the next generation of entertainment talent to forge their own path if success does not come easily, WTOC reported.

When the honor was announced, festival director Christina Routhier called Mirren “a true master of the craft” and said her career offers students a major learning opportunity, Variety reported.

Saturday’s other honor went to Meghann Fahy, who received the Spotlight in Television Award during the festival’s TV Sidebar screening of The Good Daughter, WJCL reported in its festival coverage.

A Talent for Murder is directed by Anton Corbijn. Ehrenreich plays a young man sent by a New York publisher to Switzerland to persuade a famous writer, played by Mirren, to write one last book in her thriller series, according to the festival program as reported by Variety.

The award adds to a list of career honors for Mirren, Cover Media reported. She won the Academy Award for playing Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 film The Queen and received Oscar nominations for The Madness of King George, Gosford Park and The Last Station. She has won Emmy Awards for Prime Suspect and Elizabeth I, and in 2015 she earned a Tony Award for playing Elizabeth II again in the Broadway production of The Audience. Her honors also include the BAFTA Fellowship and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, and she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2003, Cover Media reported.

Still ahead at the festival: the Centerpiece Gala on Tuesday, October 27, built around Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut, at which Julianne Moore receives the festival’s Icon Award, and the closing-night film on October 31, Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, EW and AwardsWatch reported. Keanu Reeves is also set to receive a Legend of Cinema Award during the festival week, according to the festival’s announcements.

The weekend’s developments in Savannah were reported by the city’s local stations, WTOC and WJCL, and in the festival’s own announcements.

Sources: WTOC; WJCL; SCAD Savannah Film Festival; Variety; EW; AwardsWatch; Folio Weekly; Cover Media.