By Tasnia Habib
The Atlanta Film Festival + Creative Conference (ATLFF) announced its 44th annual event would be taking place from September 17 through September 27, 2020. The festival, which opened yesterday, includes 36 drive-in screenings, 127 selected works that will play in virtual screenings and educational events. The Atlanta Film Festival, an Academy Award qualifying Film Festival, is one of the largest film festivals in the country, welcoming an audience of over 28,000. The Atlanta Film Festival was originally scheduled to take place in the spring but was postponed due to precautions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are 15 narrative and 10 documentary features, and 12 short film and creative media blocks that will screen at drive-in events. Among the announced drive-in screenings are the films The Outside Story, a comedy starring Brian Tyree Henry and Sonequa Martin-Green; In the Cold Dark Night, a true-crime documentary feature set in Griffin, Georgia; and the festival premiere of Fandango at the Wall, a documentary feature executive produced by Carlos Santana, Quincy Jones, and Andrew Young. Approximately half of all of ATLFF’s selected works were directed by people of color and 20 percent of selected works have ties to Georgia.
The full schedule of films can be found online and on the new Atlanta Film Festival app, which can be downloaded in the App Store or Google Play.
ATLFF also announced the full lineup of the 10th anniversary Creative Conference, the festival’s series of 20+ educational events. The 2020 Creative Conference will shift formats to virtual events, with a focus on Masterclass conversations and panels featuring accomplished directors, showrunners, producers, writers, actors, production designers, editors and more. The educational programming will cover a wide range of topics including virtual pitching, development, creating family friendly content, marketing, digital branding, podcasting, and sales and distribution.
ATLFF badges are now on sale on the festival’s website. Badge options range from unlimited access to all virtual screenings and events to individual screening tickets.
Below are the synopses for some of the feature films you may want to check out at this years festival:
Still from the film The Outside Story.
The Outside Story
86 min., Narrative Feature
Director: Casimir Nozkowski
Cast: Brian Tyree Henry, Sonequa Martin-Green, Sunita Mani
Logline: Charles Young (Brian Tyree Henry) is an introverted video editor trying to recover from a broken heart. Perceiving a betrayal of trust as a sign his girlfriend Isha (Sonequa Martin-Green) is leaving him, Charles preemptively blows up his relationship and sequesters himself at home. When Charles accidentally locks himself out of his apartment, he is quite literally forced out of his comfort zone and must interact with the neighbors he has long avoided. With no shoes, no money, a phone running low on battery, Charles finds himself embarking on a transformative odyssey within his own community.
In the Cold Dark Night
94 min., Documentary Feature
Director: Stephen Robert Morse, Nick Hampson
Logline: Set in the heart of the American South, In the Cold Dark Night examines both the 1983 and 2018 investigations into the racially-motivated murder of African-American man Timothy Coggins in Griffin, Georgia. A multi-layered story of one town in two different eras, it highlights how one era enabled this crime to go without punishment and how the other attempts to bring justice decades later. Featuring a 360-degree view of all people involved within the case, In the Cold Dark Night asks audiences to become the juries themselves; questioning their presumptions of guilt, innocence, and authority.
Fandango at the Wall
93 min., Documentary Feature
Director: Varda Bar-Kar
Cast: Wendy Cao Romero, Jorge Francisco Castillo, Fernando Guadarrama
Logline: Fandango at the Wall follows Multi-Grammy winning collaborators Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra founder/conductor Arturo O’Farrill and Music Producer Kabir Sehgal to the remotest regions of Veracruz, Mexico, where they meet and jam with the masters of son jarocho. Son jarocho is 300-year-old folk music rooted in the land that combines Indigenous, Spanish and African traditions. After their inspiring journey to a place where time seems to stands still, Arturo and his orchestra join the masters of son jarocho at the music and dance festival Fandango Fronterizo which takes place simultaneously on both sides of the United States-Mexico border, transforming an object that divides into one that unites. Fandango at the Wall reveals a Mexico seldom depicted and shows how art and culture can bring our countries and people together.
Curtis
80 min., Narrative Feature
Director: Chris Bailey
Cast: Dwight Henry, Alex Henderson
Logline: Suffering from schizophrenia, a former basketball star is triggered down a dark path when he discovers his championship ring is missing. With the help of a young boy in the neighborhood, he scours the streets of Detroit for it, only to find himself stuck in a time warp and unable to come to grips with life as it is now.