Tag: movies

Dahlonega, a picturesque Georgia mountain town known for its Hallmark movie charm, is preparing to welcome the Christmas spirit in the heart of summer. A Small Town Christmas, a three-day convention featuring beloved holiday film stars and festive activities, will take place July 25-27.

When Atlanta actress Danielle Deadwyler is reading a script for the first time, she has to feel a spark of “curiosity, inventiveness, or spontaneity” before agreeing to star. This approach has worked well for her in recent years; every performance she gives aches in humanity, as she goes from intense to vulnerable to funny to strong in an instant. Deadwyler is just as mesmerizing in 40 Acres, the post-apocalyptic thriller in which she plays Hailey Freeman, the matriarch of a family trying to survive on a farm after a series of plagues and wars.

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.

Opus writer/director Mark Anthony Green credits all the great things he’s achieved in his life and career to his legendary Atlanta alma mater, Morehouse College. Green introduced his directorial debut—a stylish horror film set in the celebrity world of music starring Emmy winner Ayo Edebiri (The Bear) and two-time Oscar nominee John Malkovich—at Atlantic Station, where the 2010 graduate would watch films weekly as a student.

Powell is known for her work on films like The Favourite, Shakespeare in Love, and Carol

Danielle Deadwyler’s work is inventive, thought-provoking, and captivating; Hollywood was always eventually going to take notice. Station Eleven, The Harder They Fall, and Till made clear that she had the screen presence to command viewers’ attention and the emotional depth to sway their hearts. Jumping into the Hollywood machine only sharpened and heightened Deadwyler’s already considerable talents. Clearly, she was just getting started.

It’s October 1970, and Muhammad Ali’s triumphant return to boxing in Atlanta has spawned a daring million-dollar robbery that is now threatening to ignite a mob war. On this particular afternoon, Atlanta police detective J.D. Hudson, embodied by Don Cheadle, has zero expletives left to give.

Ahead of a 30th anniversary screening of Alma’s Rainbow at the Plaza Theatre, we spoke with the filmmaker and former Spelman professor about joining the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and her work to portray the experiences of Black woman on screen.

The company has only four people on staff, but they regularly work with up to 40 local crew members on their productions. While a short film can let someone flex their creative muscles, a commercial production, like a recent one for Grammarly, can pay full rates and keeps collaborators coming back. Wax & Wane has so far produced 10 shorts and plans to expand to features next.