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Flashback/Flashforward I'm sure you've heard the expression, "To know your future you must look to the past," or at least some fortune cookie variation of that phrase, right? I've wondered if that's really true or not. Personally, it reminds me of something the Sphinx, a character from the movie Mystery Men, would say... just something that sounds profound, which you'll likely not get called on. I mean who really knows? In some ways, just in our microcosm of society here at CinemATL, it's really a lot of hogwash. I mean, for CinemATL, we have no significant past to look at. Less than a year ago there was no inkling of an online magazine to shine the light on Southern filmmakers, independent or otherwise. Most members of this staff were planning, shooting, completing and marketing our own small film projects, with no idea that by year's end we'd be planning, writing and publishing this magazine.
Some of the subjects that we've already covered in CinemATL seem to prove that there may be something to this. Off the top of my head, I think of three recent Southeastern Media Award winners that have been featured here who are now in post production on projects that will further carry the torch for our film community. Winners from 2005, 2003, and 2001 all have shot late this year on feature films. The Last Adam, Good Intentions and Randy and the Mob have all recently filmed in Georgia and, judging from the results I've seen, will do the film community here very proud. Rainforest Films spread The Gospel to theaters around the country to score their biggest success to date, complete with a star-studded gala Atlanta-based premiere at the Rialto Theater. The past of Rainforest could have told you that this was coming. This is the team that independently distributed their film Trois to the tune of $1.2 million at the box office, so there was no excuse not to see their bigger success coming. This year has seen the release of several other local films on the national scale. Last Goodbye, The Adventures of Ociee Nash and Ghost in the Needle all were released nationally on DVD. Straight-up genre films scored significant shelf space as well, with titles like Jack O'Lantern and No Witness gracing video stores near you—as well as everywhere else, too. Even short films that are ordinarily relegated to film festivals and online downloads caught distribution, like The Dubya, on a Troma DVD collection, or national exposure in contests, like Battaglia and Now I Just Run (okay, that was late '04, but don't bother me with details). In fact, it's safe to say that more independent Georgia films saw significant distribution in 2005 than in the previous couple of years combined. A baby step, you say? Maybe. It's still a step that's important for independent filmmakers to take more often for us to lay claim to being "in the business." As long as the recent past is still considered the past there have been a few films shot and/or completed this year that are already making their mark on the festival scene. Dark Remains won its first two festivals (LA's Shriekfest and Rhode Island International) before we could even blink, Stomp, Shout, Scream played at the prestigious Austin Film Festival and now we know where we'll see the official premiere of The Other Side, in, yeah, Park City at the Slamdance Film Festival. These films are all certainly very much the now and though they all aren't exclusively Southern films any more, we certainly will lay claim to them as they were shot here and have enough of our excellent talent base that we've earned that right to claim 'em. But these films are certainly destined to be part of that past that we'll allude to down the line, when the occurrences that I'm outlining in this article are so commonplace that it won't be just us making mention of them. If the past selections of local talent at the Atlanta Film Festival is an indicator, the near future looks incredibly bright. Though often criticized in recent years for its lack of local filmmaker presence, the Atlanta Film Festival has been able to predict the future not only through the aforementioned Southeast Media Award but also with its Perfect Pitch selections. This year, two past finalists (one winner included) have seen their films make it to the American mecca of independent film, the Sundance Film Festival. James Ponsoldt's Off the Black and Hadji's Somebodies respectively (the latter filmed in Athens, GA) will screen at the prestigious festival next month. Yet another finalist of that year, Robert J. Lee, saw a script he wrote make it to the Top 5 of the Austin Film Festival. Now that's an impressive track record for picking talent. So is that part of our past that we look to to predict the future of our scene? I'd like to think so.
The holiday season often becomes a time to reflect and we should all think about what we've done this year. I know I'll miss many of those who've left our film community, and am thrilled when I meet more dedicated folks that I hadn't known in the past. I'm proud of what we've been able to do collectively, as well as individually, and yet still think that we've got many miles to go. However, I'm taking comfort in the recent past as a lamp-fire finally conducting some heat that fuels a hope that we won't freeze, creatively cut off from the rest of the world. Atlanta as a film community may be Almost Famous but remember "...it's all really happening..." Martin Kelley is a local screenwriter and filmmaker who co-founded and became co-president of the Atlanta Screenwriters Group, one of the largest screenwriter organizations in the Southeast. Martin's screenwriting credits include "Loaded Dice," "Behind the Nine" (Echelon Entertainment) and "Vicious" (M.T.I. Home Entertainment). |
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