The 50th Atlanta Film Festival and Creative Conference

It’s time for my favorite event in Atlanta, the Atlanta Film Festival! As one of the largest and longest-running festivals in the country, ATLFF welcomes an audience of over 28,000 annually to discover hundreds of new independent, international, animated, documentary, and short films selected from 8000+ submissions worldwide. As always, there is an emphasis on films celebrating the local area, with festival films tied to Georgia filmmakers. Attending the Atlanta Film Festival is a must for film lovers. ATLFF is presenting some of the best upcoming films Hollywood has to offer, including movies from top studios and from around the world.

The 50th annual Atlanta Film Festival and Creative Conference will take place Thursday, April 23 - Sunday, May 3, 2024, at the Plaza Theatre and Tara Theatre in Atlanta, with some of its lineup available virtually from May 4th - 11th.

The long-running festival has always been a distinguished event, recognized by MovieMaker Magazine as one of the “50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee.” Atlanta Film Festival has been celebrated as the Best Film Festival by Creative Loafing, Sunday Paper, 10Best, and Atlanta Magazine.

Opening night on Thursday, April 23rd, will feature Idiots, directed by Macon Blair and filmed in Georgia. Emmy-winning producer Alex Orr, Executive Producer Joshua Harris, and actor O’Shea Jackson Jr. will attend.

Also on the same night, the premiere of the limited series documentary, The Birth of Trap Music, makes its debut. Stars and Executive Producers T.I. and Drumma Boy, among other cast members, will walk the red carpet ahead of the Opening Night and take part in a post-screening Q&A following the documentary screening.

On Friday, April 24, the Tara Theatre will screen One Spoon of Chocolate at 8 pm. The event will be attended by the film’s director, RZA, founder of the Wu-Tang Clan, 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, and Emmy-nominated writer, producer, and director. The cast features Shameik Moore, Paris Jackson, Blair Underwood, Michael Harney, and Emyri Crutchfield.

A special screening of Gifted will take place on Saturday, April 25, 2026, at the Tara Theater at 5 pm, with Emmy and Critics Choice Award-nominated star McKenna Grace in attendance. Grace will receive ATLFF’s Phoenix Award at the event, honoring her achievements, career momentum, and ongoing contributions to Atlanta’s film industry.

Oscar-nominated, Grammy-winning actress and singer Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple, Peacemaker) will attend a special screening of If I Go Will They Miss Me at the 50th annual Atlanta Film Festival on Wednesday, April 29, 2026.

2026 IMAGE Film Awards Gala, part of the festival’s milestone 50th anniversary, will be held Friday, May 1, at Assembly Atlanta, recognizing standout contributions to film, television, and Georgia’s creative community.

This year’s honorees include Will Packer (Ossie Davis Award), Josh Brolin, Carrie Preston, Hilton Howell, and Georgia Entertainment (IMAGE Film Awards), David Cross (Rebel Award), and Alex Orr, who will receive the inaugural Will Packer Award.

The Closing Night film on Saturday, 2nd, will be Boots Riley's I Love Boosters, starring Keke Palmer, LaKeith Stanfield, Naomi Ackie, Don Cheadle, and Demi Moore.

The festival is also known for its short film categories and is one of the few festivals in the country that offer Academy Award-qualifying for all three short categories: Narrative, Documentary, and Animated.

The annual Creative Conference, ATLFF’s popular educational programming extension, runs April 28 to May 1st. The Creative Conference provides educational programs for aspiring filmmakers, festivalgoers, newcomers, and community members to gain insight from industry experts. The Creative Conference features workshops, panels, talks, and demos that will delve into the world of filmmaking, focusing on topics such as screenwriting, pitching, acting, producing, casting, funding, and distribution, and how they all come together to make a film or television episode.

Highlights include conversations with David Cross and directors Craig Zobel (The Penguin) and James Ponsoldt (Spectacular Now), alongside sessions such as Practical AI for Independent Filmmakers, Inside the Independent Film Ecosystem, and Creating Creature FX and Puppetry for Indies.

The full schedule of films and events is available at www.AtlantaFilmFestival.com. Festival passes are on sale now on the site. Tickets for individual events will be available online.

Monday

Note to readers: I currently am not willing to risk my health (I’m 63 and an asthmatic) by visiting a theatre. All films that I have seen for review have been screened in my home. I am not going to tell you whether or not to attend a theatre. Just be aware of the risks, do your research, and follow the instructions.

My View: Monday (2020) R   Mickey (Sebastian Stan) and Chloe (Denise Gough), two Americans on vacation in Greece, meet by chance and have a great weekend together. When it's time to go back to her boring world, Chloe decides to give up her job back home and find out if this passion for Mickey can turn into something real and lasting. This is a film that begins light and fun, as many romances do, especially ones that start as one extended, sex-filled date. Like romances that start fast and quick, reality soon makes itself known in the relationship, as the two lovers discover more about each other. We learn that Mickey has a son from a messy relationship and that Chloe is hiding a secret on why she wanted to leave Greece. I enjoyed the first half of the film, but the second half drags a bit as problems start developing in the relationship, some of which are major, some seem very minor, but all are seen by the two characters as almost deal-breakers, as we have two characters that are just not meant to be in a long-term relationship with each other. I found that I had very little interest in Mickey and Chloe staying with each other because the film never makes it evident that they should be together. Yes, life is messy, and relationships are complicated, but sometimes it is a better result if both parties figure out they shouldn’t be together and cut their losses. Unfortunately, the film never quite figures this out, and we are left as Monday ends with the couple continuing their downward slide on their own. My Rating: Bargain Matinee    Monday Website   Now playing in select theatres. 

My View: Vanquish (2021) R   Victoria (Ruby Rose) is a former drug courier for the Russians known for doing anything to get the job done. When retired cop Damon (Morgan Freeman) kidnaps Victoria’s daughter, she must go on five courier jobs, or her daughter will be killed. You know you are in trouble with a film when the filmmaker takes the point of view of a rat, not just for a quick glance but for multiple shots while the dialogue is trying to set up the storyline. Speaking of storyline, there is a scene near the beginning of the movie where Damon (Morgan Freeman) is in a church confessing his sins to a priest. I have not a clue what Damon tells the priest or why, but we get it; Damon is a dirty cop. The action sequences are horrible, and the car chase scenes are so dull I thought I was watching a traffic cam from a local highway. There are some genuinely mind-numbing scenes where Victoria is on her way to do another pick-up, and we see flashbacks to scenes we just saw a minute ago, along with a closeup of her daughter crying out for her mother. The ending is predictable from almost the beginning of the movie and has one of the worst special effects I’ve ever seen in a film or TV show. I kept flashing back to when I was younger and would go into a video store and rent a straight-to-video movie with some action star whom I barely knew; only those films had some fight sequences that I wanted to watch…this one, not so much.     My Rating: You Would Have to Pay Me to See it Again    Vanquish Website   Now playing in select theatres and available for rent on participating on-demand services on April 20th.

Indiefest: Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts   (2020)   Bill Traylor was born into slavery on a cotton plantation in rural Alabama. After the Civil War, he worked as a sharecropper, then moved to Montgomery, where he did odd jobs until in his 80s, he started drawing and painting. This documentary looks at the man and the remarkable drawings and paintings Bill did between 1939 to 1942 that took on the art world and shook it to its core, with Traylor being recognized as one of America’s greatest self-taught artists. This is such an interesting film about a man I knew very little about other than he was some sort of folk artist. Traylor did most of his art in the last decade of his life and mainly used scrap pieces of cardboard that he found on the street. The film uses a mix of interviews with art historians, relatives, and people who knew Bill, along with actors reciting works by Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston and a performance by tap dancer Jason Samuels Smith to illustrate Bill Traylor’s life and work. Bill was a fantastic artist, capturing his past life on the farm and his life living on Montgomery's streets, with drawings that seem almost to move because they are filled with his energy and life. I am so happy that I got to experience Bill Traylor’s art and come to understand what was behind those beautiful, brilliant pictures.    My Rating: Full Price     Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts Website    Available for rent on virtual cinema through Kino Marquee  which benefits local theatres. 

Indiefest: In the Earth (2021) R   The world is in ruins as a dangerous virus is plaguing the world. A scientist, Martin (Joel Fry), and a park scout, Alma (Ellora Torchia), venture deep into the forest for a routine equipment run. Their journey soon becomes a terrifying trip through the unknown as the forest comes to life around them. This is one of those films that I wished I had seen at a film festival (preferably at a midnight showing) with a big crowd wanting to be scared. The film needs that energy from the crowd to create creepiness and ramp up the scares. Watching this at home, I know I didn’t have the same experience. I enjoyed that Alma is the stronger of the two, the leader, and Martin is a weak, meek follower who is way out of his element. The first two-thirds of the film are creepy as hell, as we get introduced to just how dangerous and mysterious the forest is. The film tries to build toward an ending that it doesn’t quite pull off. For all the fun and scares of the first portion of the film, the end feels lackluster as it becomes slowed down by its attempt to create a mythology about the forest and then justify that mythology as truth. For such a promising start of a film, the ending becomes a confusing and unsatisfying conclusion that makes you feel that the film could have been much more.    My Rating: Bargain Matinee     In the Earth Website     Now playing in select theatres. 

Forgotten Film: melvin goes to dinner (2003) R Melvin (Michael Blieden) makes dinner plans to meet an old friend, Joey (Matt Price), who then invites an old friend, Alex (Stephanie Courtney), to come along. Alex runs into a friend of hers, Sarah (Annabelle Gurwitch), and invites her to the dinner. The four then over a lot of wine, discuss everything from death to dating to sex, all while waiting for their menus. Directed by Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), this funny and charming film is like you are allowed to tag along and be at a table with four strange and hilarious people. The dialogue is real and witty, the camera work makes you a part of the dinner, and the stories they tell will have you laughing out loud. melvin goes to dinner is a film that deserved a bigger audience when it was released, winning a bunch of awards on the film festival circuit but never made it on the map. Grab a glass, or maybe a whole bottle of wine, and have fun with four people discussing life. Be sure to watch for all the soon-to-be well-known actors playing bit parts in the film like Jack Black, David Cross, and Jenna Fisher.    My Rating: Full Price    melvin goes to dinner info

Weird Credits: From the credits of Vanquish: Hair for Morgan Freeman

Where Have I Seen You Before?: Ellora Torchia, who plays Alma in In the Earth, was in the 2019 Indie hit Midsommar in the role of Connie.

Coming Soon to a Screen Near You: Eat Wheaties! (2021) Sid lives an under-the-radar life when it begins to unravel after he claims that he was friends with actress Elizabeth Banks in college. This looks like so much fun, and the cast includes Alan Tudyk, Sarah Chalke, Robbie Amell, Elisha Cuthbert, Paul Walter Hauser, Danielle Brooks, and David Walton.     Eat Wheaties! Website

Until Next Time!

The Prom

 Note to readers: I currently am not willing to risk my health (I’m 62 and an asthmatic) by visiting a theatre. All films that I have seen for review have been screened in my home. I am not going to tell you whether or not to attend a theatre. Just be aware of the risks, do your research, and follow the instructions to the letter.

My View: The Prom (2020) PG-13   Two down on their luck Broadway stars (Meryl Streep, Jame Corden) travel to a small Indiana town to support a high school girl, Emma (Jo Ellen Pellman), who, against the wishes of the townspeople, wants to take her girlfriend to the prom. First, I didn’t expect that this film would go longer (2 hours eleven minutes) than some proms have. The film must have twenty musical numbers. So many musical numbers that they kind of all just crash into each other. I loved the lead actress, Jo Ellen Pellman, who has a beautiful singing voice and is perfect as the sweet, innocent Emma. The film is based on a somewhat actual event and was performed on Broadway. This film's star power should have made it much more fun than it is with a cast that includes Nicole Kidman, Kerry Washington, Keegan-Michael Key, Andrew Rannells, Tracey Ullman, Kevin Chamberlin, and Mary Kay Place. The film feels slapped together with a storyline stretched so thin it collapses under its own weight as it goes over the top, time after time. Now, don’t get me wrong, Meryl Streep steals the spotlight every time she is on the screen, and her numbers are bright and campy. That being said, I never found myself loving or even liking most of the film that was, for this musical film-loving critic, a chore to watch.    My Rating: Bargain Matinee   The Prom Website     Available on the Netflix platform and currently playing in select theatres including Landmark Midtown Art  and Springs Cinema and Taphouse in the Atlanta area.

Indiefest: Wild Mountain Thyme (2020) PG-13   Rosemary (Emily Blunt), against her family's wishes, is head over heels in love with her neighbor Anthony (Jamie Dornan). The problem is Anthony is cursed, as madness runs in the family, and he remains oblivious to Rosemary and her advances. In walks, an American (Jon Hamm), who wants to buy Anthony’s family farm and also, just might take Rosemary away too. I wanted this film to be as good as its premise, but unfortunately, the film fails to capture any magic that its location of Ireland deserves. The on-location shots are beautiful, but the film never can find its footing, as it tries to get us interested in what the movie feels are star-crossed lovers, but we never quite get a hold of why the characters are supposed to be together in the first place, other than the fact that they grew up next to each other. Christopher Walken plays Anthony’s father, a man who I couldn’t understand where he was coming from, what his reasoning was because he seems to change his mind as many times as he lights a pipe. I love Emily Blunt, and she is the best part of this film, but the chemistry between her and Jamie Dornan isn’t there. In fact, as soon as Jon Hamm shows up, there are more sparks between him and Blunt in just a few scenes than there is for the rest of the movie between the two main characters. The last third of this film will baffle you, making you wonder what the heck happened and also ask: ‘What the heck kind of accent was Christopher Walken using?”   My Rating: Cable    Wild Mountain Thyme Website    The film is currently playing in select theatres including Landmark Midtown Art and Springs Cinema and Taphouse, and is available to rent on participating on-demand services.

Indiefest: Wander Darkly (2020) R   New parents Adrienne (Sienna Miller) and Matteo (Diego Luna) are in a troubled relationship that gets harder when they are forced to reckon with trauma. They must revisit their past while trying to unravel the truth to face their uncertain future. This film takes you a while to get into as Adrienne is dealing with a horrible tragedy, but about halfway through the film, I started to really enjoy the format the movie used to let Adrienne explore her feelings and grief. It’s a film that allows Sienna Miller to shine, and she is brilliant as the difficult, headstrong woman who has trouble even admitting that she loves Matteo, much less think their love can last. What I loved about this film is that we see everything through Adrienne's eyes that it is her story to explore and understand. I wasn’t sure where this film would end up, but I was pleased with the exploration of Adrienne and her life that the movie took us on.   My Rating: Full Price    Wander Darkly Website    The film is available to rent on participating on-demand services 

Indiefest: The Dark Divide (2020)  Urged on by his wife’s (Debra Messing) last wish, renowned butterfly expert Robert Pyle (David Cross) barks on a trip he has long put off, to trek through the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The problem is Robert has never hiked on his own for such a dangerous and lengthy journey, a trek full of beauty and challenges. Oh, man is this a beautiful, gorgeous film to watch that makes me miss movie theaters so much. The scenery is breathtaking, and the musical score is perfect for the film. Shot on location, the film makes the forest its main character, full of beauty but also full of danger and, at times, a mystery. The Dark Divide isn’t a high-action film but a movie about a man who has suffered a devastating loss and has gone on a trip to explore not only the wilderness but also deal with his own personal grief. While a good deal of the film is Robert by himself, he does come across a few people during his travels, and that lets us explore how man deals with the wilderness in various ways. As an Everyman, David Cross is very relatable in the film, as he plays a man who isn’t an outdoorsman but is willing to keep going on his journey of discovery, no matter how hard or scary it gets. If you love the wonder and beauty of nature, along with the exploration of the human character, then this is a film for you.   My Rating: Full Price    The Dark Divide Website    The film is available to rent on participating on-demand services. 

Indiefest: Minding the Gap (2018)   Documentary on three young men who grew up together in the Rust-Belt, using their love for skateboarding as an escape from their volatile family life and the adult responsibilities they now have. It would be easy to say that this is a simple film about three young men trying to grow up in a tough time, but that would be too simple. The filmmaker, Bing Liu, uses his camera to explore what it means to be a man in this modern world. Liu explores not only the lives of his two best friends, the easy going Keire and the charismatic but troubled Zack, but also looks at his own unhappy childhood with a father who abandoned his family and a stepfather who beat both Bing and his mother. Liu, as well, turns the camera on Zack, who has a baby with a girlfriend who he constantly fights with, and Keire, a black teen whose own father died just when he needed him the most. Liu was one of those kids who always had a camera on him, so that we see the three grow up before our eyes and how skateboarding became the base of a family that they needed to go to when things got tough. Minding the Gap is a film that is profoundly moving and is brilliantly shot and edited. It is worthy of its nomination at the 2019 Oscars and is worth your spending time with this skateboarding gang.   My Rating: Full Price    Minding the Gap Website   The film is available on the Hulu platform.

Forgotten Film: Heartbreakers (2001)  PG-13 Max (Sigourney Weaver) and Page (Jennifer Love Hewitt) are a mother and daughter con team. Their specialty; Max romances wealthy men into marrying her, and then Page slides in to seduce the husband, thereby letting Max take them to the bank in a divorce settlement. Their next mark is supposed to be their last, a zillionaire named William B. Tensy, who just might bring the con duo down. Two reasons to watch this comedy; Gene Hackman and all the small roles of actors who soon made it big that fill out the supporting cast. Hackman is hilarious as a wisecracking, awful man who can’t stop being a jerk or smoking. The supporting cast includes Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis, and singer/songwriter Shawn Colvin. It’s a fun film that is a little dated, but it is a blast to watch Hackman have so much fun with a role that he obliviously loved playing.   My Rating: Bargain Matinee    Heartbreakers Info

Weird Credits: From the credits of The Dark Divide: Lepidoptera Consultant

Coming Soon to a Screen Near You: Hunter Hunter (2020) Joseph (Devon Sawa), his wife Anne (Camille Sullivan), and their daughter Renée (Summer H. Howell) are a family living in the remote wilderness, struggling to survive as they earn a living as fur trappers. To their dismay, a rogue wolf has returned and is robbing their traps. Joseph leaves his family behind to trap the wolf, with Anne and Renée to fend for themselves in woods that has become dark and deadly. The trailer looks great, and the film seems to have a lot of twists and turns, which should make it a fun, scary ride to watch.     Hunter Hunter Website

Until Next Time!