At the 50th annual Atlanta Film Festival, SaportaReport’s own Maria Saporta and Delaney Tarr hosted a conversation with two film industry veterans about what the next 50 years of film in Atlanta could look like, and what the festival needs to move forward.
Amanda Kelso, former interim CEO of the Sundance Institute, started her career at “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Then she moved into technology strategy, working at Miramax, Google, Instagram and Sundance. She worked on the team that scouted Atlanta as a potential new home to the Sundance Film Festival.
Brian Newman has worked for the Atlanta Film Festival several times — as an intern-turned-festival director in the early years and as the Executive Director of the IMAGE Film and Video festival.
Below is the wide-ranging Q&A on the next 50 years of the Atlanta Film Festival, slightly edited for length and clarity.
DT: We would love it if you guys could share what you’re bringing to today’s conversation.
AK: I have a lot of passion for Atlanta. I was a part of the Sundance RFP process, which I think we might talk about a little bit later. I really do think this film festival is really important, so I fully expect that it will be around for the next 50 years.
BN: I was here for five years around the IMAGE time period, then I went to New York and I was running the Rockefeller fellowships and the Tribeca Film Institute. And now I have my own company called Sub Genre, and I work in a weird niche where I work with major brands that are making films, and we help them distribute their films. But I’m really here to talk about the history of the Atlanta Film Fest and where it might be going.
MS: I would like to pick up on that. I don’t know if it was the first one, but it was a studio off of Cheshire Bridge. I remember it was wonderfully chaotic, how the film industry can be. It’s hard to imagine how it went from that to what this is. So, Brian, if you can share a little bit from your perspective the historical evolution of the Atlanta Film Festival and where it is in the national landscape.
BN: When we did the 25th anniversary, we did a lot of research into the first years. There was a different Atlanta Film Festival back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Believe it or not, the rumor was that it was going to become the next Cannes, that it was the most important film festival in America. They had a matching grant opportunity, but the city declined to match the grant. The founder at that time left and went elsewhere. But there was a group of independent filmmakers who started this thing called IMAGE. It was called the Atlanta Independent Video and Film Fest because they couldn’t get their film shown in the big festival, which then ended up closing down.
The first festival was in the Piedmont Park bathhouse, and then it slowly grew. By the time I got here, I think Atlanta had built up a name. A really strong name as a regional film festival that was great at showing alternative independent voices, and it was known for showing cutting-edge stuff, like that was one of the things it was known for.
It didn’t have any pretensions of trying to be the next big thing. It was all about showcasing independence. But at the same time, Sundance was growing, the independent film world was booming. Miramax and people were buying movies at Sundance for millions of dollars, and it was always kind of this push and pull. Could Atlanta grow into the next big thing or not? That’s always been one of the debates. As the film business started growing here, that started coming up more and more.
But the problem has been, there’s a lot of major companies based in Atlanta that have never been supportive of the film festival, and so getting that monetary support to be able to do the marketing and growth Atlanta could be capable of. It’s just not a town that supported the arts in a way that Cleveland does, for example.
MS: Chris Escobar, Executive Director of Atlanta Film Society, is known to say in Atlanta, there are about 27 different film festivals, and Cleveland has one. If you combined all of our 27 film festivals, its audience would be less than Cleveland. There are so many different identities, and it’s hard to get everyone.
BN: My first year here as executive director, my goal was three things: I wanted to move. At the time, the festival was at the Regal Hollywood 24. We didn’t have access to the Plaza, so we moved the entire festival downtown. The second goal was to try to get Ted Turner as a sponsor. We did get Turner to sponsor, and we got Delta briefly as a sponsor, but it was not a major one. The other one was to try and get all these festivals to come together, and to have one “festival of festivals” and work together. There’s something in the water where people all think they have to have their own thing. No one seems to be able to get that vision of, like, if we all work together, it might have a bigger impact.
DT: The bigger impact is such an interesting thing to hone in on, because inside the film community, it’s very easy to get insular and think about how Atlanta sees Atlanta. But you both have been on the national stage. What is the perception of Atlanta’s film industry, and specifically the Atlanta Film Festival, when we get beyond the state?
AK: I think everyone knows the film industry in Georgia is very strong, and I know it’s not as strong as it has been but it’s still quite robust. It’s still in the top three or four of the U.S. What needs to be cracked is that connective tissue.
When we’re looking at the sponsors on the board, I was thinking about why is Netflix not on here? I think there’s a bit of making sure the community pays its dues in terms of supporting culture here. I would also make the argument that festivals are local, even something like Sundance. If you look at the economic impact studies, 70 percent of people who attend the festival are from the region. The big challenge for Sundance is going to be, how do you rebuild an audience in Colorado versus Utah?
So, if you think about it, the purpose of the Atlanta Film Festival is to support the local community and bring films that have a lens that’s very unique to Atlanta.
DT: I do want to follow up on something, the local bit. The local character is very strong here. But these local filmmakers are facing the question of “What do I do now?” There aren’t many pathways for these independent, smaller budget filmmakers to come to these festivals like they would at TIFF, and get their film bought up and distributed. How does that come into play when we’re thinking about the future of the film festival?
AK: I think that problem is universal. It doesn’t matter if you’re at Cannes or TIFF, the idea of using a festival as a market has been changing so even that idea of being able to be discovered and snapped up, that’s almost a mythology that doesn’t exist anymore.
It’s really about what the purpose of the festival is, right? To me, part of it is the notion of connection, community, and, dare I say, people coming together in person. Those are really important parts of this. The idea of collectively experiencing art is a really important part of a festival. However, also supporting artists is critical. So how do we think about that? That’s a whole other conversation.
BN: Last night I was in Calgary, and one of the questions they asked me was: “What’s the one myth you wish people would get rid of?” And the answer I had was the idea that you could go to Sundance and sell your film to Netflix for millions of dollars. Because that has disappeared.
It’s not just Atlanta. You’re not going to have a marketplace anymore. Now it’s more about connecting to your audience, and this is part of that journey. Right now, what Amanda was alluding to, is there’s a consolidation happening in the film industry and there’s less buyers at the marketplace. But as those things are happening, places like the Atlanta Film Fest are even more important, because it’s where you can gather filmmakers to get active on these issues, and it’s also where you can find and connect with audiences directly.
This is part of the journey of finding your audience. You might feel better if you’ve gotten into Sundance for your premiere, but Atlanta can be just as good of a place to start as anywhere else.
AK: One other thing I’ll add to that is that Sundance has 16,000 submissions and selects 100 feature films. So one of the conversations we had is “What about the other 15,900 films?” We can’t stop thinking that is the only seal of approval. The idea that there are world premieres happening at the Atlanta Film Festival is really special, and it’s something we should celebrate.
There are other questions. How do we make sure the press is involved? How do we make sure people stacked in the jury might actually be able to make meaningful introductions to those filmmakers? The infrastructure is here, the people are here, it’s just about how we actually flip all of those switches.
MS: Y’all brought up Sundance several times. Atlanta flirted with trying to get Sundance to move here. It would have been a very different flavor for Sundance to come to a city like Atlanta, and they would have added one more festival to our crowded market. From your perspective, what did we learn from that?
I think, from a journalist standpoint and talking to Chris Escobar and others, it did show some of our weak points as a community from an economic development perspective. There hasn’t been the infrastructure to go and make the creative arts a major part of our selling point as a state.
AK: The strength of Atlanta is the reason that it was a part of the six finalists in the RFP process. It started with something like 90 cities across the US raising their hand to say “I’m interested.”
I would say that part of the delight about Atlanta is the sense of community that we saw here. Please don’t take it as any sort of negative that it didn’t happen. There were a variety of reasons we made the decision that we did. There was a whole framework. Part of the reason is the fact that Sundance is still in the Rockies. Being part of the mountains was a really big part of the vibe they wanted.
The footprint that was shown to us was really compelling. Think of [the process] as the opportunity to strengthen the film community that’s already here. What is the opportunity to get the film festivals that are more fragmented to pull together?
BN: I’d love to hear what Chris thinks. The great thing was that there were a lot of communities where the city leaders wanted Sundance to come in, but the local festivals thought that was a bad thing. Chris seemed to be someone who was more embracing that this was only gonna be good for the community, for film in this town. I was rooting for Atlanta because I felt like it would be a young, diverse population that would be a great change for the film festival.
Chris Escobar: There’s definitely some truth in there. I thought, okay, there could be an extreme instance where it would potentially be bad for the organization. So I went back to the founders. The ones who I got in touch with and said: “If this was an opportunity that meant the organization could no longer exist, would you be supportive of pursuing it because of the impact it could have on the community?”
They said, “We didn’t start IMAGE to have a perpetual organization for self-preservation. We started it for the impact it would make. So if that ends up being by someone else who can do that on a larger level, that’s the point.”
With that, I felt a little liberated. The Austin Film Festival is awesome, even with South by Southwest. There are film festivals in Toronto bigger than the Atlanta Film Festival, despite the Toronto International Film Festival. There’s enough room to go around. What I saw from it was that it was more likely than not we wouldn’t win, but that pursuit of it alone would be an education for the stakeholders of what’s required for the community at large to really have something at that scale.
MS: We were talking about importing, bringing something, laying it on top of our environment. Is the solution to grow our own? To actually create what we would have wanted with Sundance moving here? What can we do to make sure this community supports the film festival?
DT: And the money is a big thing of it all, so I would love if Chris could talk a little bit about funding, about stakeholders.
CE: We have less resources this year than we’ve had in a decade to put on the biggest festival in half a century. And I hope that you guys will divulge a little bit of constructive criticism, or tough love. Brian, you were there in the early days of starting Tribeca Film Festival. What it takes from an investment standpoint, where those dollars come from, the impact and coalition building, it’s a learning lesson as much as a reality check, for me and for us who care about the festival.
AK: One of the things I say is that you can’t say your audience is everyone. One of the things I would think about for the Atlanta Film Festival is, in the next 50 years, how can you really hone who it is? Is it all of Atlanta, or is there some sort of person that shows up in the way you think about your programming? I don’t have the exact answer, but it is something worth exploring.
In France, they have an animation film festival, there’s like 9,000 people and a third are in the industry. They’ve really hunkered down, like “we’re going to focus on animation and that’s our thing. One hypothesis is that there is a way to be hyper-focused in how you’re thinking.
CE: Here’s a risk. The same way the Austin Film Festival is known as the screenwriters’ film festival, to do something that is genuine and from a place of authority. Considering we are the production capital, the Atlanta Film Festival could be known as the producer’s festival.
AK: That is exactly the kind of thinking I think needs to be explored as you think about the next 50 years. I also think the elephant in the room is AI, and there’s so much slop and we haven’t really even cracked how to use generative AI in storytelling yet. So, there’s something to be said about a bespoke festival that is more human-focused.
BN: It’s about figuring out your niche, and what’s an underserved niche in the market. In the film world, if you find a large and underserved niche, that’s usually gold.
There’s an opportunity for a film festival to redefine what a festival could be right now and step up. Whether that’s the producer thing, or embracing a more human focus, you’ve got to have that niche. But your dilemma here is you’ve got to get that group of people who care enough that they can get someone with the funding and political power to help with that push.
MS: So, if I’m hearing you all: We don’t have government support, we have limited corporate support. The Atlanta Film Festival has a lot of great young energy, but it pains me that people have been slow to get on the bandwagon.
DT: I want to give you guys a chance to round out a wide-ranging conversation. It’s hard to sum up, but where does this leave us, looking at the next 50 years?
AK: I do think AI is something we have to acknowledge is going to be part of storytelling. I think we also need to be thinking about local communities. If I’m going to think about the future as local, I think about the importance we can have in coming together as a community. It’s not going to go away, and if we continue to embrace that we should be in a place where 50 years from now we’ll continue to have conversations like these.
BN: With all the problems, it’s still positioned enough that I felt it was important to come down here for the 50th. You’re well-positioned for the next 50 years in spite of the problems we’ve been talking about. Chris, what you need is a team helping you that has the same enthusiasm for the next 50 years, because the sky’s the limit of what it could be, but it’s going to take a little bit of a small army to make it happen.
