Atlanta Film Festival 2019 – The Week That Was(n’t) : Sonic Cinema

Atlanta Film Festival 2019 – The Week That Was(n’t)

Posted by Brian Skutle Posted on Apr - 12 - 2019 0 Comment

As the Atlanta Film Festival transitioned into the week, my approach changed, as well. During the day, the Atlanta Film Society had a selection of panels for their Creative Conference. While I was definitely interested in some of those, I had personal responsibilities I had to take care of during the day, so I would just be sticking to the evening screenings. At least, that was the plan.

Monday, April 8
Even though I did not plan on attending any of the Creative Conference, Monday still ended up being a relatively busy day. In addition to working on getting content downloaded from the previous day, and reviews written for the previous day’s films, I had a 1pm appointment with writer-director Liz Manashil to discuss “Speed of Life” after its Saturday screening at the festival. (That can be heard below.) After I was done with that, I happened to get an email from a filmmaker who had entries in the Episodic Showcase at the festival and was interested in my watching it, and sitting down to talk about it. We worked out a time to meet at the Filmmakers Lounge later that day before we had respective screenings to go to, I was able to watch the episode he sent me a couple of times, and I made my way down to Atlanta a bit earlier than I expected. The series is “Who You Are”, and the episode I saw shows a darkly funny story of a startup company in the ’80s who develops an artificial intelligence that’s also a bit of a dick. It was fun to talk to the director, Joel Blacker, for a few minutes about the concept and to get to talk to him about his thoughts on the festival and film, in general. Some of that discussion will be shared on the Sonic Cinema Podcast.

After meeting up with Joel, I continued to work on my reviews for Sunday’s films, as well as my blog about the weekend, before getting ready for the one screening I had that night. The film is Noble Jones’s “The Tomorrow Man”, starring John Lithgow as a man with a survivalist mindset who thinks he finds a like-minded traveler in Blythe Danner. Lithgow and Danner are terrific, but the film seems to undercut the themes it was presenting with an ending that throws you for a bit of a loop. Still, if you’re a fan of the actors, especially Lithgow, it’s well worth watching.

Tuesday, April 9
In order to have this coming weekend off for the festival, I had to work one day at my full-time job, and Tuesday seemed like a good day to do it. The trick, however, was going to be getting off work in enough time to get downtown in time for the screenings I wanted to hit. Thankfully, I was able make it just in time before the 7pm “Rebels in the Rye” short film block, which was populated by strong, interesting female voices both in front of, and behind the camera. This was a compelling group of shorts, with a lot of different stories to tell about anxiety (“In Defense of Wonder”), grief (“Boy”), being pregnant (“Mercury”), discovering your sexuality (“Hot Dog”), shining a unique light on toxic male behavior by inverting the gender (“Masculine/Masculine”), and getting your first period (“The Boogeywoman”). Choosing a favorite out of these was tough, because all of them have something smart to bring to the table, whether it’s a bawdy sex comedy like “Hot Dog,” a personal look at dealing with trauma like “In Defense of Wonder,” or a David Lynch-inspired social commentary like “The Boogeywoman.” This was probably my most favorite short film block of the festival yet. I wish I could say that the film I screened afterwards was as satisfying to watch. After getting a bite to eat at the nearby diner, I went to a 9:15pm screening of the Malaysian crime drama, “Fly By Night”. There are some great ideas and character work in this film, but it overall just didn’t do much for me. I was disappointed with the film, as a whole. Not exactly how I wanted to end my day.

Wednesday, April 10
Wednesday was going to be a day that presented a quandry for me going into the Festival, because there were two overlapping screenings that I was struggling with between an 8pm for “Little Woods”, with Tessa Thompson and Lily James, or a 9:15pm of the documentary, “Hail Satan”, on top of a 6pm short film block featuring shorts from the FSU College of Motion Picture Arts. Because of the Festival adding a 10:30pm encore for “Reckoning” after Sunday’s sold-out affair, that decision was made easier for me. Unfortunately, my body had other plans, as I came down with a bout of food poisoning that basically left me bed-ridden throughout the day, so that, not only were my plans during the day put on hold, but I was not up to going to the Festival that night, either. This was a big disappointment for me, as I was looking forward to this lineup of films quite a bit.

Thursday, April 11
I was feeling somewhat better yesterday, but not enough to make the trip downtown for the “Sound+Vision” Event that I was most interested in checking out this night. Hopefully, another night of rest would help me get over this illness quickly, so that I would be ready for the final weekend of the festival.