The lineup for the 47th annual Atlanta Film Festival has been announced.
The film festival, along with its educational Creative Conference, will take place from April 20-30 all across Atlanta. The festival’s Opening Night presentation on April 21 kicks off with director Nida Manzoor’s “Polite Society,” a film about a girl who uses martial arts to try and save her older sister from her upcoming marriage.
Other marquee films include Paul Schrader’s “Master Gardener,” Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up,” and Davis Guggenheim’s “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie.”
“We are thrilled to return for our 47th annual festival with both an in-person and virtual format, allowing our films and content to be more accessible than ever,” said Atlanta Film Festival Executive Director Christopher Escobar in a statement. “This year’s lineup is once again full of unique programming from a variety of diverse voices from the local Atlanta community and around the world. We can’t wait to welcome audiences back this April.”
The festival slate includes 84 short films, 40 feature length films, and 27 creative media selections, with 30 countries represented in the final lineup. As movie lovers, we get to see this final slate of films in action come April. But have you ever thought about what goes into putting a film festival lineup together?
Jon Kieran, the Atlanta Film Festival’s programming director, and his team of three worked tirelessly to find the best films for the festival. For Atlanta, that means combing through a ton of submitted work.
“This past year, we got about 7,200 blind submissions,” Kieran said. “ A large chunk of our work, pretty much taking up the entire six months, the second half of 2022, was to make sure all of those films got a good watch.”
Out of the submissions that were accepted, Kieran said 25% were from local filmmakers. In addition to trying to keep the selections as local as possible, elevating new and exciting perspectives is also part of the plan. According to information provided by the festival, 49% of this year’s selections were directed by filmmakers who identify as female or non-binary. Forty-seven percent of the filmmakers represented are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC).
“We really try to discover new voices,” Kieran said. “We’re really lucky to have the trust of so many filmmakers – we got thousands and thousands of submissions – and the way, for me, to try to honor that is by presenting new filmmakers.”
Kieran said he’s excited about all of the films that will play the festival, but there are a few that stand out. “It’s Only Life After All” is a documentary that follows the lives and careers of Atlanta folk rock royalty, Indigo Girls. “Hundreds of Beavers” – which Kieran described as a “live-action, feature length ‘Looney Tunes’ episode – follows a 19th-century applejack salesman who goes head to head with, what else, beavers. And the documentary “Dusty & Stones” follows a country music duo from Swaziland who are invited to a Texas-based battle of the bands competition.
“Just to name a few,” he said. “There’s so many other films to get into.”
This year’s festival will offer a mix of in-person and virtual screenings, with screenings held at The Plaza Theatre, Dad’s Garage, The Carter Center, and the Rialto Center for the Arts at Georgia State University. According to Kieran, while many films will be available for virtual viewing, there will be an opportunity to see every single film in a theater.
“I think that’s really important right now,” Kieran said. “I worked in a theater before I came to this job … and it’s tough. I feel like supporting this idea that movie theaters are still the best place to see a movie, that was important to me.”
The Atlanta Film Festival takes place April 20-30. You can view the full lineup on the festival’s website.