Atlanta Film Festival 2019 – The Final Weekend : Sonic Cinema

Atlanta Film Festival 2019 – The Final Weekend

Posted by Brian Skutle Posted on Apr - 18 - 2019 0 Comment

By Friday morning, my sleep schedule was back to normal, and my insides were feeling relatively healthy again. It was time to not only get working on some of the things I’d put off during my two days of illness, but to get ready for the last three days of the Atlanta Film Festival.

Friday, April 12

In the morning, I finished post production on the interview I did with “Speed of Life’s” Liz Manashil, and wrote about my aborted week, and in the afternoon I took in “Shazam!” with my wife. That night, it was time to go downtown for two more screenings. The first was once again at The Plaza, and it was for Max Minghella’s fine musical drama, “Teen Spirit”, with Elle Fanning auditioning for an “American Idol”-like show in Britain with an opera singer as her manager/trainer. It was a decent way to return to the festival, and some of the songs are early highlights of my 2019 movie year. After that, I made my way to the shuttle for the first time, and while most people were headed for a party that night, I was headed for the Hilan Theatre (which I would walk back from, after I realized just how close it was to where I parked) for a 10pm screening. For a first time using the shuttle, it was nice, and I really liked the venue the Hilan was as I got ready for a film that I was fascinated for going into the festival, and am still stewing over several days later. (It is the last review I’m writing from the Festival.) The film is Alejandro Landes’s “Monos”, and, even as I prepare this blog, I’m still finding it difficult to quantify my feelings about the film. I don’t think I was alone; not a single person clapped after the film ended. This is taking some time, and would continue to dominate my thoughts as I drove home that night.

Saturday, April 13
Another Saturday meant another day of screenings, all at The Plaza, but unlike the previous week, some of these were going to be spread out, giving me some time to relax and get ready for each one.

First up with a short film block at 12:30pm entitled, “Lonely Hearts Club”, a collection of shorts with topics of loneliness, anxiety and emotional upheaval. It was a very mixed bag, but the ones I loved (“Spoon”, “Sometimes I think About Dying” and especially “Evelyn x Evelyn”, which was one of my favorite short films of the entire Festival) outweighed the ones I enjoyed, but didn’t like nearly as much (“Tender”, “Koreatown” and “Things That Happen in the Bathroom”). After this, there was one more short film block for me this weekend, but great cinema ahead.

Immediately following that block was probably my favorite film of the Festival, and one that will, very likely, make my 10 Best list of the year. The film was Willem Bosch’s “Afterlife”, about a young girl whose mother dies tragically, and she follows about a year later. Bosch’s film has a sweet energy and looks at life and death in a way that is profound, but not dour; though not quite as good as that classic, I could not help but think of Wim Wenders’s “Wings of Desire” many times during the film. This is the type of film I feel privileged to discover, as a moviegoer.

“Afterlife” provided a break before my third and final screening of the day, wherein I could get some food, along with switch out some items I had brought in preparation for the final red carpet event of the Festival. I took my place along the other press covering it, and awaited co-director Dan Madison Savage ahead of the 7:30pm screening of his electrifying religious drama, “Them That Follow”. Starring recent Oscar-winner Olivia Colman and Walton Goggins, this story about a community of pentacostal snake handlers follows some well-worn tropes of this sort of story, but Savage and co-director Britt Poulton’s objective eye, and the terrific performances all around, keep us glued to the screen at every moment. I have a mini-interview with Savage from the red carpet that I will share on the Sonic Cinema Podcast, along with others from the Festival. After the film, it was time to go home, although traffic did not get me home until much later than anticipated.

Sunday, April 14
Rain was threatened leading up to the final day of the Festival, but it largely held off for my final afternoon in Atlanta. I made my way down to my usual parking location, across from The Plaza, and went to the first of two screenings I had in mind today, an animated short film block, “Rendering a Reverie”. There was a wonderful assortment of animation styles, and stories, on display here, with “Sister”, “Untravel”, “Carlotta’s Face” and “Simbiosis Carnal” doing interesting things to discuss interesting subjects, and even the ones I didn’t enjoy as much (“Too Tame!”, “The Lost Sound”, “The Day I Got Into My Head” and “Homesick”) still have a compelling interest for the audience. There were no filmmakers on hand for a Q&A session, but the films did plenty of speaking for themselves here.

There was time before my final screening to get some lunch/dinner before making only my second trip beyond The Plaza for a screening. It was to the 7 Stages theatre about a mile away for a documentary called “The Fourth Kingdom”. The film looks at a community of immigrants who run a recycling center in New York, and one of the film’s directors, Alex Lora, was in attendance for a Q&A afterwards. This was a title I was familiar with prior to the Festival, as I was given the chance to watch the documentary short Lora had made of this material two years ago, which has also been reviewed on Sonic Cinema. It was nice to be able to see a fuller picture of this rich, rewarding subject.

With that, my time attending the 2019 Atlanta Film Festival came to an end, and it was a great experience covering a film festival for the first time. The movies I watched, the experiences I had, helped make the past two weeks fly by, and I could not be more grateful to the staff and volunteers who made the festival run, and help me out this first time out. I definitely hope to make this an annual thing, and I still have some things to share in regards to this year’s experience. I cannot wait for you to hear it.