The Atlanta Film Festival is in full swing at the Plaza Theatre in Poncey-Highland, anchoring a stretch of programming that runs through this weekend and beyond, according to Rough Draft Atlanta. The premiere screening of "Idiots" opened the festival earlier this week, with several more films queued up across the festival's slate.
The Atlanta Film Festival is one of the longest-running film festivals in the Southeast, and its anchor screenings at the Plaza Theatre on Ponce de Leon Avenue have been a rite of spring for Atlanta cinephiles for decades. The Plaza, built in 1939 and now operating as an independent theater, lends the festival a feel that no multiplex can replicate.
The festival has announced the full lineup for its annual Creative Conference, a programming block that brings together filmmakers, festival programmers, and craft-focused panels. The Film Love series returns to the Plaza Theatre on May 14 with "Big Screen 2: Return to Reason," a compilation of artists' films in 35mm curated by Andy Ditzler and scholar of handmade cinema Gregory Zinman.
Adjacent programming runs across the city. SCAD is hosting an all-day event called "SCADFILM In Focus: Writing" on April 30 from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., with panels, script-reading opportunities, and podcast recordings. "SCHOOLED," a new Netflix STEM series, is hosting casting calls for Atlanta-area students who fit the target demographic.
For Poncey-Highland, the festival is the kind of programming that anchors the neighborhood's cultural identity. The Plaza Theatre, just up Ponce from the BeltLine and a short walk from Ponce City Market, draws visitors from across the region to a corner of the city where independent cinema has remained stubbornly viable through decades of theater consolidation.
