Moviegoers attending the 2015 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, kicking off Jan. 28 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, probably won’t notice the difference, but Atlanta’s largest film fest has undergone a major change behind the scenes.
Presented for its first 14 years as a cultural outreach program of the American Jewish Committee Atlanta, the AJFF became an independent non-profit entity in August. The mutual agreement between the two organizations will allow the country’s second largest Jewish film fest (after San Francisco’s) to grow as an autonomous institution and expand its offerings beyond the annual cinematic extravaganza.
“It’s a really monster moment for the festival because we have been operating as primarily as an advocacy project of another organization and inherently there are some challenges structurally as well as programmatically with that,” said executive director Kenny Blank, who will continue his leadership role.
“It’s grown so big now,” Blank continued. “(Because of) the resources it demands and the opportunities to expand into other arenas in the arts-culture community in Atlanta, we really needed to have that independent structure to make that event sustainable for the long-term.”
What form that expansion takes will be determined as part of a strategic planning process that will start after the 2015 fest.
Blank said possibilities include offering programming throughout the year, including presentations beyond film screenings.
Steve Labovitz, a McKenna Long & Aldridge partner and an AJC Atlanta vice president, will lead the film fest’s inaugural board of directors.
While newly independent, the festival will continue an active partnership with AJC Atlanta, and its programs will continue to encourage dialogue among ethnic, religious and national communities.
The 2015 AJFF will present 165 screenings of 60 films representing 23 countries over 23 days at sites in Midtown and north Atlanta, Jan. 28-Feb. 19. Tickets go on sale Jan. 11 at www.ajff.org. Read the AJC's report on lineup highlights: artsculture.blog.ajc.com.
MUSIC
Jason Alexander back on ASO schedule
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has announced that Jason Alexander, the “Seinfeld” comedian who’s also a versatile Broadway performer, will be the featured artist at the Symphony Gala on March 7 at the Woodruff Arts Center.
The fifth annual black-tie gala will begin at 6 p.m. with a pre-concert cocktail reception in the High Museum of Art’s Stent Atrium. Alexander will perform with the ASO in Symphony Hall at 7:30 p.m. Following the concert, patron guests will enjoy a seated dinner in the High Museum’s Taylor Lobby, then a lounge-style after party, with desserts and dancing, in the Stent Atrium.
Proceeds will benefit the orchestra and its education and community engagement programs.
Gala ticket packages, starting at $1,000, and concert-only tickets, starting at $39, will be available Jan. 5 at 404-733-5000, www.atlantasymphony.org, or from the Woodruff Arts Center box office. Details: www.aso.org/gala.
Alexander was to have appeared in an ASO Pops performance in late October, one of eight concerts that were canceled at the start of the orchestra’s 70th anniversary season as musicians and management hammered out a collective bargaining agreement.
By coincidence, a month before Alexander's rearranged appearance, his old TV costar, Jerry Seinfeld, will bring his comedy act to the Fox Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 6. Tickets, $50-$150, via www.foxtheatre.org.
Meanwhile, the orchestra's first Symphony Hall concerts of the new year are Jan. 8-10, with Asher Fisch conducting a program that includes Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov (in his ASO debut) playing Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. The Jan. 9 presentation will be the orchestra's initial "First Friday" concert of the season, featuring an abbreviated performance with an early starting time (6:30 p.m.) and at a reduced ticket price (all seats $25). Details: www.atlantasymphony.org.
THEATER
New shows usher in the new year
Metro Atlanta’s stages receive a dusting of holiday sugar (and, in a few cases, spice) in December. But many of them get right back to their usual business as soon as the holidays are over. Here are highlights of their January offerings:
- The Atlanta Shakespeare Company is first out of the gate with "The Merry Wives of Windsor," Jan. 1-Feb. 1. www.shakespearetavern.com.
- Georgia Ensemble Theatre in Roswell opens "One Slight Hitch," a comedy from Lewis Black, on Jan. 8 for a run through Jan. 25. get.org.
- Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville remounts its hit staging of "Les Misérables," Jan. 15-March 1. www.auroratheatre.com.
- Broadway in Atlanta brings the musical "Newsies" to the Fox Theatre on Jan. 20-25. foxtheatre.org.
- The Alliance Theatre presents the world premiere of the musical "Tuck Everlasting" for a Jan. 21-Feb. 22 run. alliancetheatre.org.
- Actor's Express stages the comedy "Bad Jews" from Jan. 22 to Feb. 22. www.actors-express.com.
- The Larry Larson-Eddie Levi Lee comedy "Waffle Palace" returns for a second encore at Horizon Theatre Company on Jan. 23. www.horizontheatre.com.
Coming Jan. 9 in Go Guide: critic Wendell Brock previews new stagings of the new year.
FILM
Remembering another who recalled Selma
With director Ava DuVernay’s Oscar-bait film “Selma” having had a successful Christmas day launch in 19 theaters in Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles and Washington, Paramount is now planning to expand the civil rights drama to theaters nationwide on Jan. 9.
As a sidelight, it’s an appropriate time to take note of the late October passing at age 87 of Alabama folk artist Bernice Sims, a memory painter whose most important work recalled civil rights protests in her state that she witnessed firsthand in the 1960s. Perhaps her best-known composition, one she painted many depictions of over an art career spanning more than three decades, was the Bloody Sunday clash on March 7, 1965, when Alabama state troopers and other law enforcement attacked protesters on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge.
In 2005, the U.S. Postal Service included Sims’ painting among 10 stamps commemorating milestones of the civil rights movement. In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the time of the release of the set, titled “To Form a More Perfect Union,” she said it was a supreme honor to be included alongside better-known artists such as Romare Bearden, William H. Johnson and Jacob Lawrence.
Sims executed her painting of the confrontation in the same cheery palette she employed to capture other scenes from her early years in rural Alabama — creek baptisms, tent revivals, workers harvesting cotton.
Despite those bright colors, Sims — a voter registration worker from the town of Brewton in south-central Alabama who was “a supporter, a cheerleader” at the bridge, not a demonstrator — recalled “Bloody Sunday as “a very dark day.
“Some [of the marchers] were so angry,” she told the AJC. “It had gotten to the point where there was no turning back. I was fearful of the violence. And thank God, it wasn’t worse.”
To fit on the postage stamp, Sims’ 1991 version had to be cropped, emphasizing the sea of marchers, but not the conflict, on the bridge. The stamp also did not include an ironic touch she included in the various different versions over the years — a white person, sometimes more than one, mindlessly fishing under the bridge as the conflict above turned bloody.
“The marchers were trying to make a statement, but some people wouldn’t let their minds get bogged down in all that,” Sims explained of her ironic flourish. “They weren’t paying attention. They could ignore it.”
