ATLFF '16 Jury & Audience Award Winners Announced!

Photo: Border Union Photography

2016 Jury Award Winners

• Narrative Feature Jury Award - HUNKY DORY (directed by Michael Curtis Johnson)
• Documentary Feature Jury Award - DRIVING WITH SELVI (directed by Elisa Paloschi)
• Documentary Feature Special Jury Award - JUANICAS (directed by Karina Garcia Casanova)
• Narrative Short Jury Award - THUNDER ROAD (directed by Jim Cummings)
• Documentary Short Jury Award - KRAINA (directed by Christina Tynkevych)
• Animated Short Jury Award - SHELL ALL (directed by Zaven Najjar)
• Music Video Jury Award - "Dove" performed by Pillar Point (directed by Jacob Krupnick)
   
• Filmmaker-to-Watch Award - ZELOS (directed by Thoranna Sigurdardottir)
• New Mavericks Award (presented by SPANX & The Sara Blakely Foundation) - DRIVING WITH SELVI (directed by Elisa Paloschi)
• Southern Spotlight Award (presented by Cineverse) - QUE SERA (directed by Robyn Hicks)
• Seed&Spark Award (for Crowdfunded Films) - EAT WHITE DIRT (directed by Adam Forrester) and THE NEW ORLEANS SAZERAC (directed by James Martin)

2016 Audience Award Winners

• Audience Award Feature - THE FOUNDERS (directed by Charlene Fisk & Carrie Schrader)
• Audience Award Short - HOTEL CLERMONT (directed by Heather L. Hutson)

What's With the Shorts Block Titles?

Each year, our Shorts Programmers craft numerous shorts blocks made up of films selected from thousands of submissions. If you're familiar with ATLFF or any other film festival, you may be familiar with more traditional shorts block titles: Narrative. Documentary. Drama 1. Animation 2. While straightforward, these genre-based titles are reductive representations of all the nuance and freedom any film genre holds. For the first time in our forty year history, our Shorts team took a completely original, more daring stab at how we present these short films and their makers.

Each block is named for a classic anniversary gift material, textile, or object. Most commonly recognized by wedding anniversaries, these materials carry both physical and symbolic weight. As the years and union grow, so does the value of the corresponding gift.

"What this concept does is bring these blocks together in cosmic alignment. They revolve together around one unifying theme, the formation held together by the gravity of the films themselves," muses ATLFF Senior Shorts Programmer Christina Humphrey.

The three-word caption beneath each title at once describes the nature of the material and the nature of the films in the block. We took great care in drawing tactile essence from each material in a way that helps the audience see, hear, and feel a cohesion not typically conveyed by a simple genre label.

Says ATLFF Shorts Programmer Alyssa Armand, "We experimented last year with off-genre block titles—Better Left Unsaid, Based on a True Story, Love NC-17—and they became our most memorable screenings. This year we attempt a mindfulness that removes the need for forced labels and expectations. What better year than our 40th anniversary to let the films speak for themselves?" 

Explore the following fourteen shorts blocks, their relationships to our titles, and the energy in their descriptions. Click on each title for individual film synopses, screening time, and ticket information.

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THE STORY OF PERCIVAL PILTS

Candy

Short and sweet.

The four animated and two live-action films in this High Museum screening are colorful, energetic, family-friendly, and less than thirteen minutes each. "Crap You!" comes from Theo Taplitz, one of our youngest 2016 filmmakers.

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AN ECSTATIC EXPERIENCE

Copper

A pliable backbone.

Pure in nature, copper was the first metal purposefully alloyed to create metals anew. The nine experimental films in this block manipulate images, sounds, and even film itself to create cinematic worlds never before seen.

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THE SEND-OFF

Coral

Crucial and vibrant.

Corals create a vast, important ecosystem mined for use in medicine, climate research, and more. The eight documentary shorts in this block are as striking and irreplaceable.

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EAT WHITE DIRT

Cotton

Hardy and tight-knit. 

The three local, portrait documentary shorts in this group are as versatile and irreverent as the staple fiber woven into American history for better and worse.

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THE CITY OF JOY

Gold

A delicate investment.

A highly coveted standard of currency and wealth, gold is fragile but worth it. All four competition documentaries here present subjects determined to forge ahead no matter the cost.

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ANOTHER KIND OF GIRL

Ivory

Displaced and dispersed.

The seven documentaries in this powerful block are thanks to seven teenage girls in Jordan refugee camps sheltering those uprooted and scattered by the Syrian crisis; the block is aptly named for the precious pieces ripped from grand giants for human profit.

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EDMOND

Paper

Nimble and exact.

A sharp but flexible canvas, paper in the hand of an artist can destroy as quickly as it creates. These eleven shorts in competition showcase the breadth and boundlessness of animation's craft.

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HOW TO BE A BLACK PANTHER

Pearl

Shiny but gritty.

The most treasured pearls are wild; humans comb through hundreds of oysters to find just one, and it's never perfectly smooth. These five narrative shorts reveal teenage characters in throes of depths untold.

*Not intended for all teen audiences.

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EL ADIÓS

Ruby

Imperfect and scarce.

Rubies are among the rarest and most valuable gemstones; a true ruby has natural flaws that contribute to its individuality and desirability. Named for the 40th anniversary gift, this block hosts seven narratives directed by New Mavericks.

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HARMONY

Silk

A costly transformation.

The block title that started it all, silk is an ancient, prized textile woven from fibers produced naturally in silkworm cocoons. The six narrative shorts included here explore the price of one thing becoming another.

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MORE THAN MUSIC: SENEGAL

Steel

Scraping the sky.

A foundational piece of urban development, steel defines skylines and anchors urban sprawl. These eight shorts from Atlanta-based filmmakers span three genres: animation, documentary, and narrative.

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AFFECTIONS

Tin

Light and loud.

The laughter inspired by these seven comedic narrative shorts will echo like the celebratory collection of cans strewn from the bumper of a matrimonial getaway car.

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MANOMAN

Wood

Some assembly required.

All-purpose and adaptable, wood is exactly what you want it to be—once you figure out what that is. The nine puppetry shorts in this block showcase the strength and utility of a genre largely under the mainstream radar. 

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LA FABBRICAZIONE

Wool

Other-Worldly fibers.

Formerly known as Other Worlds, this block of six narrative shorts in sheep's clothing presents surreal spaces spun from stories insulated with impact.

ATLFF '15 Official Selection BEAR STORY Receives Academy Award Nomination

Bear Story (Historia de un oso)

ATLFF '15 official selection "Bear Story (Historia de un oso)" received a nomination for the Best Animated Short Oscar! Directed by Gabriel Osorio Vargas, the film tells the story of an old bear's life through a mechanical diorama.

Mountainfilm on Tour ATL '15 also featured a short film that went on to recieve an Academy Award nomination. "Body Team 12," directed by David Darg, also received a nomination for Best Documentary Short.

Body team 12

The Atlanta Film Festival is an Academy Award-qualifying festival in all three short film categories. The winners of our Best Narrative Short, Best Documentary Short and Best Animated Short Jury Prizes go on to become eligible for Oscar shortlist inclusion.

Homespun Series to Spotlight Atlanta's Bustling Art Scene at The Plaza on July 30

Homespun is a curated series of short documentary films profiling unique individuals around the metro Atlanta area. Partnered by the Atlanta Film Festival, the series features local filmmakers who highlight the characters and neighborhoods that give Atlanta its distinctive culture. Through these individual character studies, Atlanta will be revealed as the Homespun phenomenon it has become.

There is no doubt that the arts scene in Atlanta is thriving. Any native Atlantan can tell you that our streets are exploding with art—from colorful murals lining our underpasses, to community-inspired and public-transportation projects, to a multitude of galleries featuring a wide range of performance and visual craft. This installment of Homespun will showcase a few of the artists working in and around the metro area who bring their innovative and sometimes homegrown creations to our city.

Admission: $10; Free for ATLFF Members

(ATLFF Members: Click Enter Promotional Code below and input the email address associated with your festival membership for complimentary tickets.)

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Low
Directed by Alex Zhuravlov & Arkia Jahani

The film focuses on The LOW Museum, located in downtown Atlanta. The gallery was created by three artists who've turned their residential home into an exhibition space. The LOW is dedicated to cultural undercurrents and underground art scenes in the city. The gallery founders visit WRAS 88.5 college radio station to discuss their mission and to learn more about the station's current situation. The following day Jordan Stubbs presents his work "You Tell Me" at the LOW; a collection of interactive sculptural installations that are made from found objects.

Inside the Abyss
Directed by Adrienne Lee

"Inside The Abyss" is an exploration of human character. Danny Abyss is a young, ambitious and up-and-coming tattoo artist from Atlanta, Georgia. He firmly believes in dedication and living his life to the fullest potential. Danny's beliefs are revealed through the sacrifices he makes to grow as a tattoo artist, the people he encounters, and his unwavering commitment to his craft. 

Kyle Brooks
Directed by Whitney Reed

Kyle “BlackCatTips” Brooks is a neofolk artist living in Atlanta, GA. A painter for over 15 years, Brooks has become a mainstay in the Atlanta art scene. While his work follows in the folk tradition by speaking to contemporary issues, his inspiration comes from the things he sees everyday—bugs, animals, and odd Atlanta folk walking down the road. Many of his commissioned pieces can be seen in storefront windows, restaurants and metro homes; but Atlantans are also just as likely to see one of his whimsical paintings nailed to a utility pole in an East Atlanta neighborhood. 

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ATLFF '15 Best Documentary Short Award-winner Jesse Kreitzer Updates Us on His Next Project

The Murder Ballad of James Jones, ATLFF’s Jury Award-Winner for Best Documentary Short, was a byproduct of fool’s luck and good fortune.

James “Tail Dragger” Jones, a protégé of legendary Chicago bluesman Howlin’ Wolf, had been cast in my short film Lomax, a spirited reimagining of folklorist Alan Lomax’s 1941 journey through the Mississippi Delta. An Arkansas mule driver at age seven and a natural-born showman, James’ life experience superseded every line on the page. James didn’t like the idea of rehearsing and I agreed to roll with it. Well, come production day, James didn't quite "have it".  We improvised, shot wide, and grabbed as many cutaways as we could justify.

Unsure if I had a film, I brought the script and a bottle of whiskey to James’ hotel room to record a clean read that night. With the lavalier still clipped to his collar and half a bottle down, we were bullshitting about working with The Wolf and the heyday of South Side Chicago Blues. James asked if I knew about his record. I knew of the albums he produced for Delmark, but that wasn’t what James was talking about. He proceeded to tell me of his rising feud with “Boston Blackie,” a guitarist who was better known for cutting and shooting. As James spoke with a slang and vernacular that disappears with the passing of every elder bluesman, the recorder rolled and preserved a little-known piece of Chicago folklore. So there you have it. Lightning in a bottle.

My next film currently in post-production explores another slice of Americana.  Black Canaries, a 1900s coal mining folktale inspired by my maternal ancestors, is the story of the Lockwood family coal miners who operate a private drift mine in rural Iowa. After a mine collapse blinds the youngest son and kills the hauling mule, the family must continue to drudge the depths, extract coal and keep warm against the winds of the vacant prairie.

In collaboration with the Berklee College of Music’s Film Scoring Program, Composer Jose Parody and Music Supervisor Austin DeVries are putting the final touches on the score and sound design as we prepare for festival submissions this fall. In the meantime, I’m organizing a grassroots film tour at arthouses, makeshift venues, backyards, and living rooms, to present advance screenings of the film to raise the necessary finishing and distribution funds.

Click here to watch the trailer and learn more about "Black Canaries."

— ATLFF '15 Award-Winning Filmmaker Jesse Kreitzer

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We are now accepting submissions for the Oscar-qualifying Documentary Short category and all other categories for the 2016 Atlanta Film Festival. The Earlybird Deadline is June 20, Regular Deadline is September 18.

Oscar® Eligible Short Film Competition Lineup Announced for 2015 Atlanta Film Festival

Last week, the Atlanta Film Festival (ATLFF) announced its competition film programming in the narrative and documentary feature categories. Today, the festival is pleased to announce the competition lineups in the narrative, documentary and animated short film categories.

For years, ATLFF has been one of only two-dozen Academy Award® qualifying festivals in the United States for the narrative and animated short competitions, corresponding with the live action and animated short film Oscar® categories. In 2013, the Academy began approving film festivals as sources for eligible documentary short films. This year, the world's most prestigious organization of film industry professionals chose to include ATLFF in the exclusive list of qualifying festivals.

Providing that the films otherwise comply with Academy rules, the winners of the ATLFF narrative, animated and documentary short jury prizes will be eligible for consideration at the Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run. Only 14 other film festivals in the United States are Oscar® qualifying  in three or more categories.

“Documentary is evolving,” said ATLFF Shorts Programmer Christina Humphrey. “It’s been great to witness and identify so many changes since I began watching ATLFF submissions in 2011. With our documentary short competition winner now eligible for Oscar® consideration, we hope to bring our perspective on this genre-bending evolution to the Academy’s attention.”

The 2015 ATLFF short film lineup represents fifteen countries: Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Passes for the Festival are available for purchase now. Individual tickets go on sale later this month. The 39th annual Atlanta Film Festival takes place March 20-29, 2015.

Pink Grapefruit

Narrative Short Competition:

Actresses

directed by Jeremy Hersh
USA, 2014, English, 11:36
Follows the romantic relationship between a 23-year-old aspiring actress and an off-broadway star.   
 

Charming

directed by John Brandon Delaney
USA, 2015, English, 13:20
A former child actor arranges a meeting with a stranger in a sleazy motel room. The two form a connection that will change her life forever.
 

Haze

directed by Chloe Domont
USA, 2014, English, 12:00
A young man struggles to explain what happened the night before.
 

Hole

directed by Martin Edralin
Canada, 2014, English, 15:00
A daring portrait of a disabled man yearning for intimacy in a world that would rather ignore him.
 

Jennah

directed by Meryem Benm’Barek
Belgium, 2014, French, 18:00
Jennah a young 13-year-old girl is growing up. This path goes through troubles with her mother and the discovery of her femininity.
 

Persefone

directed by Grazia Tricarico
Italy, 2015, Italian, 18:00
In this dark fable rendered in golden, sun-kissed images, a young diver on the coast of the Adriatic in southern Italy finds another kind of natural wonder amidst the bounty of the sea: a beautiful woman. As his strange romantic obsession grows, he withdraws ever further into silence.
 

Pigs

directed by Laura Mohai
Singapore/Malaysia/USA, 2014, 7:45
A young boy attempts to care for a dying piglet in the farm he lives on. His tries to understand his mother who doesn't quite accept him and grieves a lost child. The death of the pig on the bed of the lost child leads mother and son to a quiet conflict.
 

Pink Grapefruit

directed by Michael Mohan
USA, 2015, English, 11:00
A young married couple travels to Palm Springs with two single friends for a long weekend, leading to unexpected results.
 

Rosa

directed by Francisco Neffe
UK/Portugal, 2014, Portuguese, 14:00
Single mother Rosa is locked in a room after a public fight with her ex and ends up receiving help from a young neighbor.
 

Skunk

directed by Annie Silverstein
USA, 2014, English, 16:00
When her pit bull is stolen by an amateur dog fighter, 14-year-old Leila is forced to stand up for herself, at the cost of her own innocence.
 

Stay Awake

directed by Jamie Sisley
USA, 2015, English, 13:50
Brothers, a mother, songs from the seventies, Xanax, and a woman named Vicki. “Stay Awake” explores addiction and making sacrifices for people you love.
 

Stop

directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green
USA, 2014, English, 8:51
A police confrontation forces a young black man to consider how racial profiling might antagonize the consequences of his actions and put his future at risk.
 

Turtle (Wu Gui)

directed by Jordan Schiele
China, 2014, Mandarin, 14:59
Rush hour in Beijing. A construction worker selling a turtle on the road winds up at the country studio of a potential customer who has another offer in mind.

 

Chop My Money

Documentary Short Competition

Broken Branches (ענפים שבורים)

directed by Ayala Sharot
Israel, 2014, Hebrew, 25:00
An animated documentary about the life of Michal Rechter, who was only 14-years-old when she left her home in Poland and travelled to Israel by herself on the eve of the World War II.
 

Chop My Money

directed by Theo Anthony
Democratic Republic of Congo, 2014, Swahili/English, 12:50
A day in the life of three street kids in the Eastern Congo. Featuring music by Dirty Beaches.
 

Crooked Candy

directed by Andrew Rodgers
USA, 2014, English, 6:00
Kinder Surprise eggs are hugely popular all around the world but (oddly) illegal in the United States, thanks to a quirk in FDA regulations. “Crooked Candy” profiles someone who smuggles the eggs across the Canadian border and has even been caught by border patrol.
 

The Murder Ballad of James Jones

directed by Jesse Kreitzer
USA, 2014, English, 3:54
In 1993, Chicago bluesman and Howlin' Wolf protégé James "Tail Dragger" Jones murdered fellow musician Boston Blackie during an on-stage performance. Two decades later, James shared his story.
 

One Year Lease

directed by Brian Bolster
USA, 2014, English, 11:00
Told almost entirely through voice mail messages, “One year Lease” documents the travails of Brian, Thomas and Casper as they endure a year-long sentence with Rita the Cat-loving landlady.
 

Unmappable

directed by Diane Hodson, Jasmine Luoma
USA, 2014, English, 22:47
This meditative portrait of iconoclastic psychogeographer and convicted sex offender Denis Wood will unveil the inner workings of a man whose work is lauded as poetic, artful and innovative – a man who unapologetically pushes boundaries both personally and professionally.
 

What’s in a Name

directed by Daniel Robin
USA, 2014, English, 12:00
Daniel Robin is mistakenly booked for a flight under the name Robinowitz (which was actually his grandfather’s name). This coincidence leads him to examine his Jewish identity.

 

The Bigger Picture

Animation Short Competition

Bar

directed by John Hartman
USA, 2014, 1:44
A thirsty traveler stumbles upon a bar in the woods, but nobody seems eager to let him in.
 

The Bigger Picture

directed by Daisy Jacobs
UK, 2014, English, 7:05
Two brothers struggle to take care of their elderly mother.
 

The Fog of Courage

directed by John R. Dilworth
China/Spain/USA, 2013, English, 7:00
A cowardly dog named Courage must rescue his lovely owner, Muriel, from a vengeful supernatural fog. Eustace, Muriel's greedy husband, refuses to return the gold necklace belonging to the Fog's long lost love.
 

Garbanzos

directed by Ammar Nassri
USA, 2014, English, 3:19
A farmer wakes up early to go get the last garbanzos in the universe. On his way back, he is faced with several obstacles that he needs to overcome in order for him to bring the garbanzos to his little daughter.
 

IOA

directed by Gabriel Möhring
Switzerland, 2013, German, 2:12
A vowel reciting speaking machine describes in a soliloquy its miserable existence as a tool of a despotic singing-teacher.
 

Kamakura

directed by Yoriko Mizushiri
Japan, 2013, 5:00
A snow hut in the middle of the rice paddy. Now, let's see what to do, in the space full of whiteness and quietness, until the Spring comes. Until the snow hut melted, and lose shape.
 

Meanwhile

directed by Stephen McNally
United Kingdom, 2014, English, 5:00
Five minutes in the lives of four strangers whose troubling lives intertwine in the final scene.
 

Never Stop Cycling

directed by Colin Lepper
Canada, 2014, English, 3:32
In order to continue his comfortable, routine life, a creature must make the journey into a strange living world.
 

Nude and Crude (Pene e Crudité)

directed by Mario Addis
Italy, 2014, 4:00
Fantastical hallucinatory moments of passion, cruelty, loneliness, dis-connection and love unfold humorously in a simple and innocent form but with deep, sometimes dark meanings.
 

One Night in Hell

directed by James Hall, Jason Jameson
UK, 2014, English, 7:06
A devilish and spectacular animation short that tells the story of a skeleton's journey into a stereoscopic hell.
 

Starlight

directed by Tamarind King, Shir Wen Sun, Marisa Tontaveetong, Yu Ueda
USA, 2014, English, 3:51
A feral cat explores the bizarre landscape of the last drive-in theater in Atlanta, Georgia.
 

Tatuapé Mahal Tower

directed by Carolina Markowicz, Fernanda Salloum
Brazil, 2014, Spanish, 9:35
After a betrayal, Argentinian scale modeler Javier Juarez Garcia decides to change his life and travel around the world, figuring out many possibilities that he did not know about. But he never forgot about his real goal—come back and take revenge from the ones who disappointed him.
 

Two Films About Loneliness

directed by Will Bishop-Stephens, Christopher Eales
UK, 2014, English, 6:00
Two neighbours turn to technology in a quest for companionship and acceptance.

ATLFF Now a Qualifying Festival for Documentary Short Academy Awards

The Atlanta Film Festival has long been a part of a select few Academy Award® qualifying film festivals, as only 37 film festivals in the U.S. currently hold Oscar qualifying eligibility. With a recent announcement from the Academy, we are proud to announce that another ATLFF film category—Documentary Short—now qualifies for Academy Awards® consideration. 

Providing that the film otherwise complies with Academy rules, the winner of the ATLFF Documentary Short Jury Prize will be eligible for consideration at the Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run.

In the past, only our Narrative and Animated Shorts have qualified. With this new announcement, ATLFF joins the company of only 14 other U.S. film festivals with three or more qualifying film categories. We are thrilled to see new and compelling documentary shorts in our future festivals that will hopefully follow ATLFF competition shorts The Dam Keeper and Butter Lamp and garner Academy Award® nominations.