Atlanta Film Festival 2019 – The First Weekend : Sonic Cinema

Atlanta Film Festival 2019 – The First Weekend

Posted by Brian Skutle Posted on Apr - 9 - 2019 0 Comment

The first weekend of the Atlanta Film Festival went by like a bullet for me, and I didn’t even have half as busy a weekend planned as I typically do during DragonCon. That’s because what I did have was basically a gauntlet Saturday and Sunday, as well as responsibilities each night I never really have had before. That was exciting.

Friday, April 5
Day 2 of the Atlanta Film Festival only had one screening in the “Opening Night” Selection of Lulu Wang’s wonderful “The Farewell”, and that was enough for a review- linked below- for me, but I had other obligations, as well. I decided I wanted to cover the red carpet entrance of writer-director Wang and her star, Awkwafina, whose appearance was added on Thursday. I’m not going to lie; I was nervous about asking them questions, as there’s only so much you can do with other press wanting to get their turn, as well, but I think I did well enough. When I started to set up the old MiniDV camera Ron, Dave and I bought 13 years ago when we were still trying to make films, I felt a bit out of place, at first, but the more people that arrived, the more at home I felt. It was definitely exciting, and I hope the video footage turns out well; my newly-acquired handheld recorder got me the audio I need. It was a successful first night, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the staff in charge of the red carpet whom had everything planned pretty well.

Saturday, April 6
The weekends are when the schedule really started to open up, and screenings were going on in multiple areas, but all of the screenings I was interested in were at the Plaza, so it was just a matter of leaving the theatre, and getting back in line. I had originally planned for five screenings that day, and it started with my second short film block of the festival, “Moments in the Multiverse” which focused on sci-fi and fantasy short films. It was a mixed bag in terms of quality, but it was loaded with fascinating story hooks (“Holy Moses’s” time travelling cow, “The Slows’s” low-tech world building, and “In Full Bloom’s”“Dominant Species” and “The Masseuse”, and a bit of a dud in “What Do You Know About the Water and the Moon?”. It wasn’t as strong a line-up as Thursdays, but it was definitely fun for a genre fan like myself.

After that, I immediately got back in line for my 4:30pm screening, and one of my most anticipated films of the festival, Liz Manashil’s “Speed of Life”. I happened to meet her as she was handing out materials in line, and we had already lined up a phone interview for Monday to discuss the film. Before the screening, a David Bowie cover band played, which fits in to the film’s main character’s appreciation of the late rock icon, and the story revolves around a worm hole that opens up the night he dies, and has a profound impact on her life. I was really looking forward to the discussion we would have Monday after the film, and I’m not going to lie- it had me breaking out my own Bowie collection as I wrote my review. On Monday, we did a phone interview discussing the film more, which will be available on the Sonic Cinema Podcast later this week.

After “Speed of Life,” I had to get back in line yet again, though this time, so I could cover the red carpet for actor Joseph Cross’s directorial debut, “Summer Night”. The film itself is a very standard coming-of-age tale about friends in a small town, but the Georgia-filmed production is instilled with a lot of heart, laughs and music and has a strong ensemble bringing it to life. In addition to Cross and his wife, producer Audrey Tommassini, other guests on the red carpet included actors Hayden Szeto (who plays Caleb in the film) and Analeigh Tipton; unfortunately, Tipton was late to the red carpet, and I was not able to see her before the movie started, though I did tell her how much I enjoyed her work in the film afterwards. My discussions with Cross and Szeto will be found on a podcast retrospective once the festival finishes up.

The plan after “Summer Night” was to then get back into line to watch the documentary, “Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool”, and then to close up the day with that night’s “Midnight State of Mind” short film block, but because I wanted to talk to the actors and Cross after having seen “Summer Night,” on top of being hungry, I missed “Birth of the Cool,” and by the point I was done with that, I felt like I was done for the day. I had another full day ahead of me on Sunday.

Sunday, April 7
Sunday was another busy day of screenings planned, but also a later start- around 2pm. That was beneficial because it allowed me to collect all the footage, pictures and audio I did covering the festival, and especially the red carpet, and reload and be ready to go for the next day. Today’s run of films were four, which all dealt with real-life situations, whether it’s in the documentary format or narrative filmmaking.

Up first was the documentary, “Life Without Basketball”, which tells the story of Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir, a star basketball player in college whom is not allowed to play professionally internationally because of a controversial ruling about female players wearing hijabs during games. We see her efforts to not only get the rule overturned, but also to find a life outside of the game she loved, and which helped define her for so long. Comparisons to “Hoop Dreams” are inevitable, but co-director Timothy O’Donnell, whom I got to speak to for a bit after the film, welcomes them, and the film he made is its own thing, with its own set of societal issues to tackle. It was a good way to start the weekend.

Following that was another documentary about social issues, but these transcend simply enjoying life and are about trying to survive it. Jacqueline Olive’s profoundly unsettling “Always in Season” looks at America’s long, painful history of lynching African-Americans, recounting stories through Danny Glover’s retellings and historical images, showing a Georgia-based lynching re-enactment society hoping to build awareness and bring justice for a Monroe County lynching, and the recent case of Lennon Lacy, a 17-year-old black teen who was found hanging in North Carolina, but the immediate police determination of suicide feels like another case of lynching not brought to justice. Olive’s film is a shot to the bow to people who just want to put their heads in the sand about the systemic, and personal, prejudices that still dominate this country’s discussion of racism, and our inability to really deal with our brutal history of racial terrorism. The post-film Q&A with Olive and some of the people in the film was enlightening and emotional.

After “Always in Season,” I had a couple of things to do; I had left the camera and tripod in the truck so I didn’t have to navigate having it all day, and I was hungry, so I satisfied both of those needs before heading to try and get in line for the 7pm World Premiere of the Georgia-filmed drama, “Reckoning”. By the time I got there, the theatre was already packed, and even if I could have gotten in, I would have been late to the movie; thankfully, an encore performance was already added on Wednesday night, so I hope to see that one. This was a blessing, though, because it meant I could just set up camp, eat my food, and get ready for the final red carpet of the weekend.

The last film on the docket for today was Joe Berlinger’s narrative drama about Ted Bundy and the woman who fell in love with him, Liz Kendall, “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile”, which will be debuting on Netflix next month. The film is not as strong as you’d like it to be, although the performances by Zac Efron as Bundy and Lily Collins as Kendall are, but it was great to see Berlinger, a great documentary filmmaker best known for the (literally) life-changing “Paradise Lost” trilogy, in person as he was there to receive the Festival’s first Originator Award.

After the Q&A post-film, it was time to return home, and work on getting everything that I had filmed, recorded and taken a picture of in order so I could begin the week ahead. Oh, and catch up on writing reviews for all the films I had seen on Sunday. I’ll have more on the Atlanta Film Festival Friday.