2009 Atlanta Film Festival News Coverage

Here are some clips from the various news sources during the festival.



Channel 2 Action News: http://www.wsbtv.com/video/19241497/index.html

CBS Atlanta: http://www.cbsatlanta.com/video/19237495/index.html?taf=lnta



Michael Ealy on CNN
http://ricksanchez.blogs.cnn.com/


Rich Robinson on Dave FM
http://maradavis.com/


Josh Brolin interview
http://www.examiner.com/x-956-Atlanta-Movies-Examiner~y2009m4d17-2009-Atlanta-Film-Festival-Josh-Brolin-interview-on-The-People-Speak

Other
http://www.examiner.com/x-956-Atlanta-Movies-Examiner~y2009m4d17-2009-Atlanta-Film-Festival-red-carpet-photos-Josh-Brolin-Howard-Zinn-Eddie-Vedder-and-more

http://projects.accessatlanta.com/gallery/view/entertainment/pearl-jam-film/

http://www.accessatlanta.com/music/content/music/stories/2009/04/16/pearl_jam_atlanta.html%3Fcxntlid%3Dthbz_hm

More to come........

ATLFF Staff visits SXSW

So, a few of the Atlanta Film Festival staff is on hand at SXSW checking out some films and hanging with some filmmakers that will be coming to Atlanta in April. We thought we'd share some of the excitement and feedback from some of the movies screening in Austin (also showing at the Atlanta Film Festival in April), to give the Atlanta audience a hint at what's coming their way.

Here is a brief interview with "Beeswax" director, Andrew Bujalski, and its leading actress, Tilly Hatcher.

A little video

So, I put together a short little video from our last Avant Garden. Avant Garden is a free monthly social-networking event hosted by The Atlanta Film Festival & The Contemporary Art Center. In February, we thought it might be fun to ask some folks about their favorite movie/star meltdown (a la Christian Bale).

"Mommy loves you."

I watched the heart-wrenching documentary Dear Zachary last night. Nearly all of my coworkers had already seen it. Some came away angry, others heart-broken. I felt both of these emotions and left the movie thinking tragedies like this most likely happen more than we realize. The heroes of the story are Zachary's grandparents, David and Kathleen Bagby. Following the horrific crimes against their family they successfully fought the Canadian legal system and are making a difference, one little bit at a time.

Before I leave you with the trailer, the one aspect of the film that bothers me is how it might affect Shirley Turner's (the killer) other children. I'm curious to find out about them, if they've seen and what are their thoughts (as this doc was made specifically for their baby brother).




Kurt Kuenne has shown several of his movies at the Atlanta Film Festival, two of which screened last year (2008) - The Phone Book and Slow. We screened Validation in 2007.

All are really good shorts. Validation happens to be on YouTube, it's only 16 minutes:

Humpday

I just wanted to share some good news about an Atlanta Film Festival alumna filmmaker, Lynn Shelton, who screened her second feature film, My Effortless Brilliance, at our festival last year (2008). Lynn's new film, Humpday, was accepted into Sundance this year and has turned out to be one of the festival's hot films. The film was bought by Magnolia! Go Lynn!



Here are a couple of blog reviews/interviews with Lynn about Humpday:



From IFC Interview: Lynn Shelton on "Humpday" Sunday, January 18, 2009 | 8:24 AM By Alison Willmore

If there were a prize for most outrageous premise at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, Lynn Shelton's "Humpday" would be ahead of the pack. The film follows Ben ("The Puffy Chair"'s Mark Duplass) and Andrew ("The Blair Witch Project"'s Joshua Leonard), two hetero friends who on a drunken night out come up with a plan to shoot themselves having sex with each other as a submission to their local alt-weekly's annual amateur porn festival -- it's art, you see, and neither is willing to be the one to back down when sobered up the next day. For now, though, "Humpday" will have to settle for being Sundance's early buzz film, its mix of squirmingly uncomfortable comedy, painfully realistic dialogue and bittersweet exploration of the ins and outs of male friendship and adult relationships winning the love of audiences and potential distributors alike. I sat down with the Seattle-based Shelton, fresh off a meeting with one of the latter, to talk about homemade porn and best bromance.
(read more)

From Spout Blog HUMPDAY: Interview with Lynn Shelton
by Karina Longworth

We’re almost 48 hours into the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, and Humpday seems to be the biggest break-out hit thus far — and according to Mike Jones at Variety, it could very well soon become the first narrative film to sell during the duration of this year’s festival. Days before the film had its hugely successful Friday afternoon premiere, we published one of our preview interviews with director Lynn Shelton. Last night, post-unveiling, I caught up with Shelton to talk about working like Mike Leigh, her cinematic interest in dudes, and why she’s glad her first two films didn’t premiere at Sundance.
(read more)

Click here to read Karina's review of Humpday


(PS: My current profile photo was taken by Lynn Shelton at the Indie Memphis Film Festival in October 2008)