Tag: Atlanta Film Festival

Hosting the FIFA World Cup 2026™ is the latest chapter in a 30-year transformation that began with the 1996 Olympic Games, which accelerated the city's growth, strengthened public-private partnerships, elevated its cultural and culinary profile, and established Atlanta as one of the world's leading destinations for major sporting events.

One of the most gratifying aspects of my years at WABE was connecting listeners to our city’s cultural events. A vibrant arts community can uplift and enrich the lives of Atlantans. The challenge today is to help these organizations thrive: Funding is essential from various sources. With money allocated to the arts, we can all take pride in a city made greater by its cultural organizations.

The Atlanta Film Festival celebrates a major milestone this year, marking its 50th anniversary, a distinction few film festivals in the U.S. have reached. ATLFF is an Academy Award qualifying festival with a reputation as highly competitive, drawing cinephiles and filmmakers to the city annually. The 2026 festival runs in person from April 23 to May 3 at the Plaza and Tara theaters, with virtual screenings from May 4 to 11.

Nonprofit arts organizations in metro Atlanta are facing financial challenges as government grants, corporate sponsorships, and Covid-era relief funding have dried up while costs have risen and audience participation remains below pre-pandemic levels. In response, arts leaders have banded together through weekly meetings and the coalition Arts Capital | Atlanta, which seeks to raise $100 million to stabilize the sector and ensure smaller organizations in particular can survive.

Today, the fate of the silver screen is more imperiled than ever, but small cinemas like the Plaza seem to have found a formula for success. In fact, Atlanta’s independently owned theaters—which also include Tara Theatre, Starlight Drive-In, The Springs Cinema & Taphouse in Sandy Springs, and Aurora Cineplex in Roswell—are doing better than ever.

Like Atlanta’s unlikely journey to host the 1996 Centennial Olympics, for The Games in Black and White filmmakers George Hirthler and Bob Judson, the path to make the new documentary—premiering at the 49th annual Atlanta Film Festival Saturday, April 26 at the Rialto Theatre for the Arts—was equally long and complicated.

The Atlanta Film Festival has always highlighted the best of the peach state, but local films are at the core of the 49th year of the festival. From April 24 to May 4, the festival screens 132 films—from documentaries to animated shorts to features—including 40 films with Georgia connections. Atlanta magazine spoke to the directors of two of these films to learn more about each feature and its local ties.

The Atlanta Film Festival kicks off, Inman Park Festival returns, and more fun things to do this week.

As we slowly win back some of the hallmarks of normalcy we were forced for so long to do without, we must also bid goodbye to the quirky innovations that took their place. The Plaza Theatre's drive-in service is one of those.

Our 2021 Best of Atlanta picks for things you should see—comedians, theater, parks, dance, art, and more.