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Fall is here (even if temps have not quite dropped), and with it comes the arrival of some of our favorite Atlanta film festivals. Here are four great festivals happening around the city this season, featuring a wide range of films from both global and local talents.
Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival
Dates: September 19-23
Location: Morehouse College
Morehouse College’s fifth annual human rights film festival showcases work at the intersection of art and social justice. Over five days of screenings, panels, Q&A sessions and other programming, the festival aims to spark conversation around some of the deepest issues plaguing our global society, inspiring creative solutions and bold new ideas.
“Human rights topics are not the ‘sexy’ topics. Human rights filmmakers . . . don’t often make it to Hollywood, make it to distribution,” said Kara Walker, the festival’s executive director, in a promotional film released on WABE-TV. A lifelong cinephile, Walker had the idea for a human rights-centered film festival six years ago. As social and political unrest grew in the United States and beyond, she saw how creative spaces could be engines for dialogue and transformation.
Since then, Morehouse’s festival has grown into a robust event; this year’s lineup includes more than 40 films, both shorts and features. Documentaries abound, on subjects ranging from the controversies surrounding wilderness therapy to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s voter suppression tactics. But you’ll also find plenty of narrative films — noteworthy selections include Honor Student, a razor-taut feature by filmmaker Tamika Miller about the complex trauma of school shootings, and She’s the Protagonist, a whimsical short from French filmmaker Sarah Carlot Jaber that satirizes the trivial roles women are relegated to play on screen.
Covering nearly every major social and political issue in our world today, the films on view at the Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival are sure to generate conversation far beyond the curtain call.
“The moving image is a powerful tool,” said Walker. “Not only can it entertain, it also has the ability to educate; it has the ability to change hearts and minds.”
Out on Film LGBTQ+ Film Festival
Dates: September 21-October 1
Location: Multiple Atlanta theaters
Out on Film, now in its 36th year, has earned its place among the nation’s top LGBTQ+ film festivals. This Oscar qualifying event is now one of the largest and longest-running festivals, celebrating work by LGBTQ+ creators as well as themes and stories that center around queer and trans communities. It’s become a beloved film event even beyond its LGBTQ+ lens: This year, Out on Film won the top slot in USA Today’s 10Best Readers Choice Award for Best Film Festival. Fun fact — Atlanta Film Festival earned fourth place, making ours the only city with two top 10 festivals on the list.
This year, you can enjoy more than 150 documentaries, shorts and narrative features, with a host of work by local talent as well as national and international releases. Headlining the festival on opening night is Our Son, a feature by Bill Oliver and Peter Nickowitz, starring Billy Porter and Luke Evans as divorcing husbands in a custody battle over their young son. Out on Film is also well-known in the film community for its coveted prizes; each year, the festival awards one Best Short Film Screenplay and one Best Feature Film Screenplay.
“People think of New York and California as being hubs for film, but Atlanta has such a strong ecosystem of film festivals,” said Jim Farmer, Out on Film’s director (Farmer is also ArtsATL’s editor-at-large.). “I think all of this is catching the world’s attention right now, and it’s really great to see all of us being recognized at the forefront of what we do.”
Farmer has helmed Out on Film for 15 years, and he’s watched the breadth and depth of submissions expand as more LGBTQ+ creators feel free to tell their stories. “One of my favorite nights [of the festival] every year is a queer horror night,” Farmer said. “And the fact that we not only have a queer horror night but have so many to choose from is just amazing! These days, there are so many more genres and diversity being represented.”
African Film Festival Atlanta
Dates: September 21-25 and October 7-8
Location: Multiple theaters in Atlanta and Alpharetta
The African Film Festival is spearheaded by the African Film and Arts Foundation, an Atlanta-based organization amplifying the vibrant African film industry globally. Its third annual festival will offer both in-person and virtual programming, screening 65 films selected out of 150 submissions from 33 countries.
The festival includes both documentaries and narrative films on subjects ranging from LGBTQ+ experiences and the African diaspora in the United States to the Chibok schoolgirls, who were abducted in 2014 from their Nigerian school by the terrorist organization Boko Haram.
Festival organizers say that film is a powerful medium for delivering a more nuanced portrait of the large and complex continent — one mediated not by Western ideas, but through the voices of African artists themselves. “One of the goals of the African Film Festival Atlanta is to provide action-driven input in improving the image of the continent through the showcase of films that change the narratives of people of African descent,” said festival founder and director Mojisola Sonoiki.
“By integrating with Atlanta’s unique features as a dynamic social, educational, artistic, cultural and film production hub, the African Film Festival Atlanta showcases passions, subtleties and trends in African cinema,” Sonoiki added.
Atlanta Horror Film Festival
Dates: October 13-15
Location: Limelight Theater (Formerly the Village Theatre)
Ring in Friday the 13th and Halloween season in true horror fashion this October with the Atlanta Horror Film Festival. This Atlanta event is back for its 17th year with three days of scream-worthy shorts and features, many of them written and produced here in Atlanta.
The festival is produced by Atlanta Film Series, an organization of independent, local filmmakers and other creatives that amplifies the city’s local filmmaking industry. The group first built the Atlanta Underground Film Festival, which, as its website puts it, created a “a safe place for independent filmmakers to thrive in a welcoming and down-to-earth setting.” The festival was so successful that the group has since added several more events, including a documentary festival and a short film festival. Horrorfest, launched in 2006, has since become one of the “biggest and bloodiest film festivals in the city.”
The Horror Film Fest offers a range of awards to notable films, handing out prizes for Best Horror Feature, Best Animated Feature, Best Sci-Fi Short and many more. Last year, Atlanta-based filmmakers Madison Hatfield and Jono Mitchell won Best Local Feature for their film, Courtney Gets Possessed.
“As a notorious scaredy-cat who was terrified to play at a horror film festival, I was so appreciative of how pleasant the entire festival experience was,” said Hatfield. “The organizers are so welcoming, the crowds are enthusiastic and with such a diverse array of works, there’s truly something for everyone there — even me, a true coward.”
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Rachel Garbus is a writer, editor and oral history maker in Atlanta. She’s a contributor at Atlanta magazine and the editor-in-chief of print for WUSSY Mag, which covers queer culture with a Southern lens. She performs improv and sketch comedy around town and has been known to pen the odd satire. She lives in North Druid Hills with her wife and her anxious dog.
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