Features, documentaries aplenty highlight Atlanta Film Festival’s final weekend
Event
Through Sunday. Most screenings at Plaza Theatre, 1049 Ponce de Leon Ave. N.E., Atlanta, and 7 Stages, 1105 Euclid Ave. N.E., Atlanta. General screenings, $10. Saturday’s closing screening and party, $30. 404-352-4225.
The 2013 Atlanta Film Festival approaches its final weekend with a substantial slate of screenings and some serious business to conduct.
During the 10-day fest that opened last Friday, nine documentaries, eight narratives and six “Pink Peach” (LGBT) features have been competing for their category’s Grand Jury Prize, selected by industry-professional jurors.
Those selections will be announced Saturday morning on the festival's website, and be given encore showings on Sunday at the Plaza Theatre: documentary winner, 11:45 a.m.; Pink Peach, 2 p.m.; feature, 4:15 p.m. (A program of winning shorts will be shown at the Plaza's smaller upstairs auditorium at 4:30 p.m.)
Also showing in the fest’s final days:
- A 55th anniversary screening of the ultimate drive-in cult movie, "Thunder Road," careens across a Starlight Drive-In screen (6:30 p.m. party, film 8:45 p.m. Thursday). Robert Mitchum plays the Korean War veteran who returns home to Tennessee to take over the family moonshining business, contending with big-city gangsters determined to take it over and revenuers who want to shut him down. James Mitchum, who as a teen played the kid brother to his moonshine-running father in the 1958 film, will attend. Original moonshiner cars will be on view.
- "Scarred But Smarter (Life n Times of Drivin n Cryin)" is local filmmaker Eric Von Haessler's loving documentary about the Atlanta band during its 25th anniversary tour (limited walk-up tickets only for the 8 p.m. Friday screening at Plaza; encore 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Plaza).
- Shot in the style of a classic Western on location in the rugged high desert of northern New Mexico, "Dead Man's Burden" (9:15 p.m. Friday, Plaza), directed by former Atlantan Jared Moshe, finds a sister and brother dealing with clashing convictions in the post-Civil War era.
- The post-apocalyptic suspense-thriller "The Mansion" was shot in the metro area over 19 days by director Andrew Robertson and producer Lilly Kanso, former Atlantans (limited walk-up tickets only for the 9:30 p.m. Friday screening at 7 Stages; encore 2:15 p.m. Sunday, Plaza).
- "Submit the Documentary: The Virtual Reality of Cyberbullying" (4:30 p.m. Saturday, Plaza) is an Atlanta-made documentary that includes testimonials of victims, survivors and experts about this growing and troubling trend.
- "As Goes Janesville" (4:45 p.m. Saturday, Plaza) is a documentary about the fallout from the shutdown of a Wisconsin automobile plant. A shorter version aired on the PBS series "Independent Lens" last October, and former Atlantan Brad Lichtenstein considers this feature-length version his "director's cut."
- "The Spectacular Now" (limited walk-up tickets only: 7 p.m. Saturday, Plaza), directed by James Ponsoldt in his hometown of Athens, stars Miles Teller ("Rabbit Hole") as a teen charmer with a drinking issue who catches bookish Shailene Woodley ("The Descendants") on the rebound. Ponsoldt ("Smashed") will appear at a Q&A after the screening, and at a party for ticket-holders on the Ponce de Leon Apartments rooftop.
- "The Great Chicken Wing Hunt," a lighthearted documentary about a band of misfits who set out to find the world's best Buffalo wings, gets an encore showing (6:45 p.m. Sunday, 7 Stages).
