2025 SCAD TVfest celebrates television made in Georgia

The annual TV festival wasn’t planning to focus on Georgia, according to Associate Chair Quinlan Orear, but it happened anyway.

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Forgive Quinlan Orear if he doesn’t have much time to stop and chat this week. As the associate chair of film and television at SCAD Atlanta, he’ll be wrapped up in SCAD TVfest, the annual celebration of all things television. 

The three-day event, running February 5 through February 7 at SCADshow, includes screenings and cast and crew appearances from several prominent new and veteran series, many that were shot in Atlanta or in Georgia: Marvel Television’s Agatha All Along;  Beyond the Gates; Stranger Things; Home Is Where the Heart Is; Found; Tyler Perry’s Sistas; Cobra Kai; Grosse Pointe Garden Society; and Clean Slate. SCAD student-produced original series, shot both in Savannah and Atlanta, are chefatl and Lodged. 

Numerous awards will be given, including a Lifetime Achievement Award to Hiroyuki Sanada (Shōgun), the Distinguished Performance Award to Noah Centineo (The Recruit) and The Hollywood Reporter’s Trailblazer Award to Emmy Award winner Uzo Aduba (The Residence). The Duffer Brothers, who write, direct and executive produce Stranger Things (about to air its final season), will receive the Variety Showrunner Award, while Clean Slate star Laverne Cox will take home the Impact Award. 

Other panels include Alumni Voices; Behind Her Lens: Showrunners, Casting & Representation 101; and Women of Warner: Leading the Charge in Television and Animation — all featuring industry heavyweights.

Orear has been in Atlanta for seven years and moved here from New York because he was excited about both the city and SCAD. He feels SCAD embraces and supports the local community and industry, while immersing the students as part of the process. “TVfest is an emblematic example of that embrace and immersion,” he says. 

In his role, Orear leads the film department, which includes 500 students in film and television and 15 professors, studying everything from cinematography to directing, producing, photography and editing. He also teaches and oversees departmental special projects, which incorporate as many students as possible. 

Over the last year, that has largely involved the series chefATL — a project completely conceived, developed, produced and edited by students that explores the diversity of Atlanta through the culinary landscape, one chef at a time. “It’s an unscripted docuseries where we profile individual chefs who are integral to the culinary landscape of Atlanta,” Orear says. “Like any good show, we try to highlight the people and the stories behind the food. Unlike other shows that may be similar, we change the host every show, and pair them with a chef and have three students on screen engaging with the chef’s ethos, process and backstory.”

So far, seven episodes are in the bag, and soon there will be a platform to watch them all. This year’s chefATL screening profiles Twisted Soul owner Deborah VanTrece. 

Orear is particularly proud of this year’s SCAD TVfest lineup and its strong focus on area work. “It almost seems like we tried really hard to design a program around filming in Georgia — but it really wasn’t that hard,” he says. “Things are shooting here; this is where production is happening. Even though we all recognize that we are in a slightly slowed down period compared to the pre-Covid boom, the proof is in the pudding that things are coming back in a big way.”  

During the festival, Orear will be presenting a few screenings and moderating others. His favorite part of SCAD TVfest is being there to engage with students, patrons and the community. 

“I will never be struggling to find something interesting to do,” he laughs. 

While film festivals are plentiful, events honoring television are less common. Orear feels SCAD TVfest has definitely found its groove over the years and continued to grow. 

“It really is one of the few events that celebrate all things streaming and TV, where a lot of those pieces don’t necessarily get the opportunity to have an audience. It’s grown immensely over the course of its 13 years from a few screenings and panels to now being globally recognized as examples of TV at its top tier, as well as student-produced work. It’s significant because it’s rare that we get to put television in a context that catalyzes conversation. That is what happens when you put people in a room and watch it together en masse. I am excited for the conversations that will follow.” 

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Jim Farmer is the recipient of the 2022 National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Theatre Feature and a nominee for Online Journalist of the Year. A member of five national critics’ organizations, he covers theater and film for ArtsATL. A graduate of the University of Georgia, he has written about the arts for 30-plus years. Jim is the festival director of Out on Film, Atlanta’s LGBTQ film festival, and lives in Avondale Estates with his husband, Craig, and dog, Douglas