35th Atlanta Film Festival: 10 days, 125 films, 3 theaters, world of cinema

Not planning on getting hammered this summer by "Thor?" Believe Hollywood executives should walk the plank for green-lighting a fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean?"

Not to say you can't appreciate mainstream megaplex fare and the 35th Atlanta Film Festival too, but if your tastes run to viewing movies that are less slick, more indie, more international and frequently more spirited despite far lower budgets, the 10-day extravaganza should offer more of what you're looking for.

Offering more than 125 films, selected from more than 1,500 submissions, it unspools starting Thursday at Landmark's Midtown Art Cinema, the Plaza Theatre and the Lefont Sandy Springs. More than 100 filmmakers and other industry professionals are expected to appear.

Here's a quick look at several selections from the intriguing slate of narratives, documentaries, shorts and international films:

"The Start of Dreams"

• What it's about: The Horne brothers (Atlanta filmmakers Tyson and Byron and Ryon -- full disclosure, the latter is an Atlanta Journal-Constitution employee) paint a revealing portrait of Atlanta stage director Kenny Leon just as his revival of August Wilson's "Fences" is opening on Broadway last year. Their frequently moving movie explores the major inspirations on Leon's life and increasingly successful career, from the grandmother who helped raise him in rural Florida to Wilson, and how Leon tries to pay that back in part by organizing the annual August Wilson Monologue Competition for high school actors across the country.

• What to look for: "Start of Dreams" is an ambitious pastiche that, without a narrator, doesn't always signal where it's heading. It also features a head-spinning galaxy of talking heads -- such as Samuel L. Jackson and Doris Kearns Goodwin -- discussing Leon and the wider world of theater that starts to feel like too much of a good thing. And while the documentary is at heart a portrait of Leon, the film spends a lot of Leon-less time with the three Atlanta 2010 Wilson Monologue finalists.

But it rewards viewers' patience by delivering a series of great moments (especially Tony-nominated actor Anthony Chisholm's devastating account of losing Wilson to cancer) and by ultimately establishing the place where Leon, Wilson, the kids and almost everyone else in the movie link up -- the soul and sacrifice of being artists with talent that must be shared.

Leon reveals humble memories of bathing in his grandmother's bath water after she was finished, and how, more significantly, she bathed him in love and gave him personal confidence and a belief in the basic decency of others. "If I could be half the person that my grandmother was, man, that would be a life well worth living," an emotional Leon says, explaining his "burning need" to give back.

As viewers watch Atlanta winners Julia Warren, Dasha McKisic and Brandon Nails stressing and straining to prepare for the Wilson Monologue finals in New York, we're no doubt seeing a little of the grace that Leon's grandmother saw in him.

• When, where: 7:30 p.m. May 3, Landmark's Midtown.

"Africa United"

• What it's about: Director Debs Gardner-Paterson's road movie through places where there aren't always roads follows a group of East African kids on a high-spirited 3,000-mile, seven-country journey to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. They are led by a pint-size, round-cheeked Rwandan operator named Dudu, the self-proclaimed manager of his soccer-mad friend Fabrice, whose wealthy parents don't buy into his dream of playing professionally. This ragamuffin band remains unflappable in the face of an array of obstacles (from wild nature to wild criminals) as it traverses landscapes of breathtaking beauty.

• What to look for: This polished adventure conveys the hope of an emerging Rwanda while touching on some sobering issues that Africa confronts, such as HIV, child soldiers and the sex trade. The story unfolds like a fable, and short animated segments illustrate the changing tale that Dudu spins to keep his crew motivated and moving.

It's best to go along with the film and not think too much about the implausibility of young kids on an epic, dangerous trek with only a World Cup poster of the continent as their compass.

• When, where: 7:45 p.m. May 7, Landmark's Midtown.

"Pigskins & Magnolias: 12 Days of Fandom"

• What it's about: Josh Locklair and Victoria Johnson-Locklair's documentary visits the Southeastern Conference's "12 sacred concrete cathedrals" -- for the uninitiated, that would be football stadiums -- where hundreds of thousands make pilgrimages on cold-weather Saturdays.

The movie puts a microphone in front of tailgaters, some already drunk but many actually coherent. And when they're not barking like a bulldog or making razorbacklike sounds, the faithful say much that is funny, and sometimes even profound, in detailing their devotion.

• What to look for: University of Georgia fans will revel in meeting obsessive fans such as Mike "Big Dawg" Woods, a follower of 50-plus years who has his chrome dome painted with a huge bulldog before games and who gets almost misty eyed when recounting the greatness of running back Herschel Walker. Then there's author-blogger Clay Travis, who allows that he prefers attending games at Sanford Stadium to the other stadiums because Athens women "wear a lot of cleavage clothes. It's good stuff!"

Not all the fans interviewed bleed Bulldog red of course. We meet one Auburn University fan who has attended 365 of the Tigers' last 366 games, having had to turn away from the turnstiles that one time after getting a call that his mother-in-law had died.

There are also interesting glimpses of pigskin culture, such as the elaborate tailgating tents at the Ole Miss Grove, complete with chafing dishes and elaborate floral arrangements.

And, of course, there's lots and lots of clever trash talking about whose fans are the finest examples of the species. Expert Travis probably gets closest to the truth: "Fifteen percent of your fans are absolute jerks who fulfill every stereotype of SEC fans as being illiterate, having kids when they're 13 years old, can't read, can't count, can't keep score. All of those things are true, but it's not any one fan base that defines it."

• When, where: 1:30 p.m. April 30, Landmark's Midtown.

"Old Goats"

• What it's about: Director Taylor Guterson's sly comedy features three, well, old goats essentially playing themselves within a fictional framework. At first, they have little in common beyond being gray-haired, retired guys without enough to do, but they become fast friends.

The oldest and crustiest of the three, outgoing Bob (Bob Burkholder), long-ago discharged from the military, is trying to publish a memoir that celebrates his conquests and mourns various sins. Sheepdog-visaged loner Britt (Britton Crosley) seeks romance to fill the void after he quits his grease-monkey job and then chickens out on plans to sail the seas solo. The most interesting character is Dave (David Vander Wal), an executive forced into retirement who tires of stock market chitchat at cocktail parties thrown by his bossy wife, preferring the companionship of his more regular-guy new friends.

• What to look for: Amid more edgy festival fare, "Old Goats" is an amiable, if meandering, comedy that feels real -- from the way contentious male friends get on each other's cases to the small-town Washington setting.

In different ways, the three friends are confronting their pasts while trying to figure out changing futures. Britt, nearly comatose from a decades-long rut at the movie's start, perhaps evolves the most, with the help of a patient new girlfriend. Even while caving to his wife's pressure to buy a Palm Beach getaway place, Dave seem to brighten at the prospects of advancing old goatishness. Any number of late-middle-age guys sent packing with a parachute by America's corporations could relate.

• When, where: 12:15 p.m. April 30, Landmark Midtown

Preview

Atlanta Film Festival

April 28 through May 7 at Landmark's Midtown Art Cinema, the Plaza Theatre and the Lefont Sandy Springs. www.atlantafilm festival.com.

Other films to look for at the festival:

• The opening night feature, Azazel Jacobs' "Terri, " is a delicate coming-of-age comedy starring John C. Reilly as a high school vice principal who helps an overweight boy embrace his outsiderness. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Landmark's Midtown.

• "POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold," Morgan Spurlock's documentary/expose about the world of product placement that was, in a strange twist, financed through product placement from various brands. 7:30 p.m. April 29, Landmark's Midtown.

• Atlanta filmmaker Bret Woods' "The Little Death," about a social reformer who ventures into the shadowed chambers of a turn-of-the-century brothel attempting to liberate a young woman she believes is being held as a sexual captive. The cast includes Atlanta stage actors such as Daniel May and Courtney Patterson. 11 p.m. April 30, Landmark's Midtown.