{"id":19229,"date":"2026-04-20T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/?p=19229"},"modified":"2026-05-10T12:19:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T16:19:26","slug":"sonic-cinema-to-cover-the-2026-atlanta-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/2026\/04\/sonic-cinema-to-cover-the-2026-atlanta-film-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonic Cinema to Cover the 2026 Atlanta Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are a few days away from the beginning of the 2026 Atlanta Film Festival<\/a>, and I’m optimistic in what this year’s coverage will be. (At the very least, I’m hopeful that I will not have to delay my podcast about the festival until July<\/a> due to my computer dying on me.) My work schedule can get plenty chaotic, but I’m hopeful that most of what I have planned in terms of in-person screenings, I’ll be able to get to.<\/p>\n

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the festival, and as a result, they are planning a lot of legacy screenings of movies that have played over the decades. While some of those I would be interested in, mainly due to the people who will be guest for them, I’m opting to stay focused on new film screenings. If I had a more concrete, and available, schedule outside of the festival, I would consider melding the two, but there’s more than enough of a recent film selection that’s compelling to me to discover new voices, and stories, that engage me emotionally, and mentally.<\/p>\n

As with last year, I will have to share my time with the Atlanta Vibe pro volleyball team- though only for their final home game on Sunday, April 26- but the 10 days will leave me plenty of time to watch movies. Below is my (hopeful) in-person schedule, as well as what I have in mind outside of The Plaza and Tara theatres.<\/p>\n

In-Person Screenings<\/b>
\n=“Idiots”<\/i> (Dir. Macon Blair; Opening Night April 23 at 7pm at the Plaza)- Two rock-bottom drivers transport a wealthy teen to rehab, but their simple job spirals into a chaotic journey of drugs, danger, and crime as their passenger derails their plans.<\/p>\n

=“Power Ballad”<\/i> (Dir. John Carney; April 24 at 6pm at the Plaza)- When Rick, a past-his-prime wedding singer, meets fading boy-band star Danny during a gig, the two bond over music and a late-night jam session. But when Danny turns one of Rick\u2019s songs into the hit that reignites his career, Rick sets out to reclaim the recognition he believes he deserves – even if it means risking everything he cares about.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

=Dark Fantasies<\/i> (Short Film Block; April 24 at 8:15pm at the Plaza)- It’s quite disturbing what dreams are made of. <\/p>\n

=“Late Fame”<\/i> (April 25 at 12:15pm at the Tara)- A long time ago Ed Saxberger wrote a book of poetry that no one ever cared about. When a group of young artists rediscover his work, he must reassess his genius. The wild card in the group is Gloria, a talented and mercurial theatre actress who toys with affections and who is all set to be admired by Saxberger.<\/p>\n

=“Frogtown”<\/i> (Dir. Costa Karalis; April 25 at 3:15pm at the Tara)- Frogtown is a unique genre-breaking film following a woman\u2019s obsessive drive to prove the existence of a magical swamp creature she befriended as a child. Set in a small Florida town, home to 5,000 dreamers, and told from the POV of a documentary crew, the film blends truth and fiction like no other, forcing viewers to question what’s real and what\u2019s not\u2014and wonder when they let go of their own childlike imagination.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

=“Lesson Learned”<\/i> (Dir. B\u00e1lint Szimler; April 25 at 7pm at the Plaza)- Young teacher Juci attempts to challenge the outdated methods in her school, while new student Palk\u00f3, recently relocated from abroad, struggles to adapt to the demanding educational system. Their personal stories offer insight into an oppressive system, reflecting the broader Hungarian society.<\/p>\n

=“Obsession”<\/i> (Dir. Sabrina Greco; April 25 at 9:30pm at the Tara)- After breaking the mysterious “One Wish Willow” to win his crush’s heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price.<\/p>\n

=“Seahorse (w\/ “Mouthfeel”)”<\/i> (Dir. Aisha Evelyna; April 26 at 6:45pm at the Tara)- Nola, a sous chef searching for stability, is barely holding her life together. After a brutal Friday night shift, she crashes her bike and wakes to find her estranged father, Cyrus, now unhoused, standing over her. Taking him into her home forces long-buried wounds to the surface. As past and present collide, Nola is pulled into a reckoning with grief, forgiveness, and the fragile possibility of repair.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

=“Babystar”<\/i> (Dir. Joscha Bongard; April 28 at 7:30pm at the Plaza)- Since birth, 16-year-old Luca has been the star of her parents\u2019 influencer empire, her every milestone curated for millions of followers. When they announce plans for another child, the cracks in their perfect image widen. Luca spirals into an emotional tailspin, rebelling against the role she\u2019s been forced to play and realising how little of her life truly belongs to her. As the pressure mounts, she must decide whether to keep performing for the feed or reclaim her life beyond the spotlight.<\/p>\n

A biting satirical drama, Babystar explores the rise of family influencing and the children who become both product and commodity.<\/p>\n

=“Party USA”<\/i> (Dir. Jared Sprouse; April 29 at 7:00pm at the Plaza)- When Taylor can\u2019t get her shift at Party USA covered after her dad dies, she makes a deadly mistake that sparks a downward spiral of red, white, and blue-collared chaos in her small Southern town. She soon finds herself caught between the social pressures of a retail job, her quietly panicking boyfriend Damian, the financial expectations of her chair-bound mother, and her unemployable vape-loving brother Keegan. When Zhara, the sharp and determined daughter of Taylor\u2019s missing boss, shows up looking for answers, the uneasy mix of grief, guilt, and darkly comic suspicion keeps tightening. Taylor does her best to keep smiling and get the store ready for the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n

=“The House Was Not Hungry Then”<\/i> (Dir. Harry Aspinwall; April 30 at 7:30pm at the Plaza)- While searching for her estranged father, a young woman breaks into an empty house in the Scottish countryside where visitors routinely disappear. As she hides from a man posing as a real estate agent who lures people inside, she begins to feel something watching her.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

=We Are Gathered Here, Today<\/i> (Short Film Block; May 1 at 7pm at the Tara)- Shhh… service is starting!<\/p>\n

=“Carolina Caroline”<\/i> (Dir. Adam Rehmeier; May 1 at 10pm at the Tara)- A young woman skips her small town \u2014 in search of her estranged mother \u2014 alongside a charismatic con man on the run from the law. The duo leave a wave of crime and passion behind them as they hustle their way through the Southeast.<\/p>\n

=“Land With No Rider”<\/i> (Dir. Tamar Lando; May 2 at 1:15pm at the Plaza)- In a remote corner of Southwestern New Mexico, the last cowboys eke out a fragile survival between industrial and protected lands. Their herds diminished by an epic drought affecting large parts of the American West, these veteran stewards of the land live in a shrinking world of isolation, vulnerability, and memories. A poetic story of intimacy with nature, LAND WITH NO RIDER captures a wisdom rapidly disappearing from the American landscape.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

=“Dwarf Neon Mayfield”<\/i> (Dir. Leland Nally; May 2 at 4pm at the Plaza)- Moving through the towns of Dwarf, Neon, and Mayfield, Kentucky after a historically destructive flood and tornado, rural people left to live amongst the wreckage struggle to survive. Humans and animals alike traverse the new contours of their world with wonder, sorrow, strength and curiosity. Elemental images synthesize into a dream of wildness from America\u2019s interior; what of the old world remains?<\/p>\n

=“I Love Boosters”<\/i> (Dir. Boots Riley; Closing Night, May 2 at 7pm at the Plaza)- Follows a group of shoplifters who take aim at a cutthroat fashion maven.<\/p>\n

=“I Want Your Sex”<\/i> (Dir. Gregg Araki; May 2 at 10:15pm at the Plaza)- When fresh-faced Elliot lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy, his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal and murder. <\/p>\n

=“Brannu: The Urban Horseman”<\/i> (Dir. Adelin Gasana; May 3 at 12pm at the Plaza)- Atlanta horseman Brandon Fulton battles with local government as he builds a 27-acre horse ranch in southwest Fulton County.<\/p>\n

=“Rose of Nevada”<\/i> (Dir. Mark Jenkin; May 3 at 3pm at the Plaza)- A mysterious boat returns to a village 30 years after vanishing. Two men join its crew hoping for better fortune. After one voyage, they find themselves transported back in time, mistaken for the original crew.<\/p>\n

Already Seen Via Screener<\/b>
\nFor a lot of reasons, my pre-festival screening has been slow, but I will update this with more as I go on.<\/p>\n

=“Far from Maine”<\/i> (Dir. Roy Cohen; May 2 at 2pm at the Tara)- Haunted by the killing by Israeli police of a Palestinian friend from his youth, an Israeli filmmaker embarks on a cinematic dialogue across time \u2014 confronting memory, friendship, and the genocide unfolding today.<\/p>\n

In this intimate cinematic letter, Israeli filmmaker Roy Cohen addresses his Palestinian friend and fellow peace activist Aseel Aslih, who was murdered by Israeli police in their youth. Cohen tells Aslih of his experiences navigating a growingly genocidal society and seeks Aslih\u2019s moral clarity and resilience in the evocative letters he had written as a teenager.<\/p>\n

Far from Maine is an international co-production that has never accepted any Israeli (or other Middle Eastern) investment, public or private.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

=“TheyDream”<\/i> (Dir. William D. Caballero; April 26 at 4pm at the Tara)- TheyDream is a deeply personal documentary presented in a variety of animation styles, that examines the transformative nature of grief, for the director, his mother, and other members of their tight knit Puerto Rican family in Fayetteville, North Carolina. As he revisits his past twenty years as a filmmaker who has employed an eclectic range of visual styles, he interweaves brand new animations with live action footage, in order to dig deeper than ever before and better understand why he makes the art that he does. Ultimately, this film becomes an intimate confession\u2014not just about grief, but about the courage it takes to transform pain into art alongside the people we love most.<\/p>\n

Virtual Screenings<\/b>
\nThe virtual screenings period will begin on Monday, May 4 after the festival ends, and last until May 10. After the festival opens, I will be able to pre-order some select options. For now, here are other movies\/short film blocks I am interested in checking out.<\/p>\n

=In Good Company<\/i> (Short Film Block; April 24 at 7pm at the Tara)- Friends, foes, lovers and woes.<\/p>\n

=“Third”<\/i> (Dir. Alexander Parkinson; April 24 at 7:30pm at the Tara)- Thomas and Sandra have reached an uneasy point in their marriage\u2014love remains, but intrigue has faded. So, when Ernesto mysteriously falls into their lives, charming and reigniting Sandra\u2019s desire for excitement, she is quick to embrace him, leaving Thomas quietly displaced. Their decision to pull Ernesto into the fabric of their marriage escalates into an unbalanced three-way relationship that transforms their home and their bond.<\/p>\n

=“B.F. Skinner Plays Himself”<\/i> (Dir. Ted Kennedy; April 24 at 9:30pm at the Plaza)- B. F. Skinner Plays Himself revisits the life and works of B. F. Skinner through never-before-seen footage recovered from a failed educational film project. Skinner\u2013a world famous public intellectual in his lifetime who continues to be ranked among the most important psychologists of any era\u2013is now largely forgotten outside a select academic niche. From Skinner\u2019s early work with rats, pigeon-guided bombs, and air-conditioned baby cribs to Utopian communes and debating Dennis Hopper, we deconstruct the scientist and the prescience of his warnings about the power of shaping behavior. The failure of the educational film shows that changing behavior, whether for utopian or authoritarian purposes, is both more nuanced and more difficult than his proponents or critics imagined.<\/p>\n

=Each One, Teach One<\/i> (Short Film Block; April 25 at 12:30pm at the Tara)- Let me learn ya’ somethin’. <\/p>\n

=“The Eyes of Ghana”<\/i> (Dir. Ben Proudfoot; April 25 at 4:15pm at the Tara)- This stunning feature documentary follows 93-year-old documentarian Chris Hesse\u2014personal cinematographer to forgotten African icon Kwame Nkrumah\u2014as he races against blindness and time to rescue and repatriate a secret trove of over 1,000 films that captured the birth of African independence in the fifties and sixties. Yet unseen by the public, these films may not only rewrite Ghanaian and African history\u2014but world history itself.<\/p>\n

=Animated Shorts<\/i> (Short Film Block; April 25 at 8:45pm at the Tara)- Visions and vistas from fiercely independent, multifariously gifted moving-image craftspeople.<\/p>\n

=Broken Hourglass<\/i> (Short Film Block; April 26 at 6pm at the Plaza)- Time isn’t linear – and yet, we anticipate an end.<\/p>\n

=“Summer Lost (w\/ “The Moth”)”<\/i> (Dir. Timothy Hall; April 28 at 7pm at the Plaza)- At a destination wedding in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Jordi attempts to keep his terminal illness a secret. Suffering from the same disease that took his mother\u2019s life, he plans to soon return home to Spain to be with family. As the wedding weekend progresses, he finds himself drawn to Nick, brother of the bride. Their attraction deepens and Jordi finds himself in limbo as this new love begins to reshape his future as well as his past.<\/p>\n

=“Starjuice”<\/i> (Dir. Austin Coombs-Perez; May 1 at 8:30pm at the Plaza)- Robert, a budding actor with a lot to prove, is known around campus as the guy from the StarJuice commercials, but he’d rather earn some artistic cred with his original play, “Mystery Man.” When a mysterious classmate with a dinosaur birthmark laughs at his in-class monologue, Robert and his friend Naldo are swept into an antic quest to achieve her approval. With a galaxy-hopping POV and kaleidoscopic aesthetic, Austin Coombs-Perez’s feature debut channels the youthful urgency and try-anything energy of true indie originals such as Terence Nance (AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY) and Gregg Araki (KABOOM).<\/p>\n

2026 Atlanta Film Festival \u2013 The Reviews<\/u><\/b>
\n“Far from Maine”<\/i><\/a>
\n“TheyDream”<\/i><\/a> (Review at In Their Own League)
\n“Idiots”<\/i><\/a>
\n“Power Ballad”<\/i><\/a>
\n“Late Fame”<\/i><\/a>
\n“Frogtown”<\/i><\/a>
\n“Lesson Learned”<\/i><\/a> (Review at YouTube)
\n“Seahorse”<\/i><\/a>
\n“Babystar”<\/i><\/a>
\n“The House Was Not Hungry Then”<\/i><\/a>
\n“Carolina Caroline”<\/i><\/a>
\n“Land with No Rider”<\/i><\/a> (Review at YouTube)
\n“Dwarf Neon Mayfield”<\/i><\/a> (Review at YouTube)
\n“I Want Your Sex”<\/i><\/a>
\n“The Eyes of Ghana”<\/i><\/a>
\n“Rose of Nevada”<\/i><\/a>
\n“I Love Boosters”<\/i><\/a>
\n“Summer Lost”<\/i><\/a> (Review at In Their Own League)
\n“STARJUICE”<\/i><\/a> (Review at YouTube)<\/p>\n

Thanks for Listening,<\/p>\n

Brian Skutle
\nwww.sonic-cinema.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are a few days away from the beginning of the 2026 Atlanta Film Festival, and I’m optimistic in what this year’s coverage will be. (At the very least, I’m hopeful that I will not have to delay my podcast about the festival until July due to my computer dying on me.) My work schedule […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-news-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/89644394-8ED6-4EC7-89E5-443BD78E1C52.jpeg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19229"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19341,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19229\/revisions\/19341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}