Atlanta Film Festival Needs Help Raising Money to Bring Filmmakers to Atlanta

The Atlanta Film Festival is following-up last year's successful #Artists2ATL Kickstarter campaign with another aimed to bring filmmakers into town during the festival. The campaign video is quick and to-the-point, illustrating the simple message that not having the filmmaker in attendance with their film is detrimental to the festival.

The campaign was launched three weeks ago and currently has seven days left, wrapping up at 11:59 PM on Wednesday, December 17, 2014. As of publishing date, over $8,300 has been committed, leaving them with just over $6,600 to go.

The biggest benefit of contributing to the Atlanta Film Festival's Kickstarter is that you can renew your year-round membership through the campaign. Your pass to the festival is your membership, so by purchasing a Moviehopper Card ($50), Film Pass ($125), Film & Conference Pass ($225) or All Access Pass ($325), you are paying the same amount that you would just before the festival, but you are getting your 2015 membership perks in place NOW and you are contributing to a worthy cause.

"A missing filmmaker is like a missing film."

The Atlanta Film Festival is gearing up to celebrate its 39th year in the spring. With arts-giving notoriously low in the state of Georgia and in the city of Atlanta, it is unfortunate that such a long-running and revered organization is struggling to raise only $15,000 in an effort to bring artists to the city with their films.

Please give and share the campaign with friends, family members and others in the community!

atlantafilmfestival.com/fund

Atlanta production "The Quantified Self" seeks funds through Kickstarter campaign

Ukraine-born, Brooklyn-based filmmaker Gleb Osatinski has played the world over with his rapturously beautiful and thoughtful films "Pisces of an Unconscious Mind" and "The House at the Edge of the Galaxy." We profiled the latter film in 2013, as it played the 37th annual Atlanta Film Festival.

At that festival, Gleb met Atlanta-based producer Imoto Harney (also well-known for her work at Doobious.org). When it came time to begin working on his next film, co-written with Danielle Ellen (who also has a degree in Neuroscience), Gleb and Imoto begin planning an Atlanta production for "The Quantified Self."

"The Quantified Self" tells the story of a family of self-trackers who devote themselves to ultimate health and success. But submitting to technology drastically alters the family's relationships, forcing them to put more faith in data than in themselves.

Funded! Atlanta Film Festival raises nearly $18,000 in #Artists2ATL campaign

Atlanta Film Festival director Christopher Escobar interviews Ray McKinnon
and the cast of "Rectify" at the 2013 festival.

The month-long campaign to raise $13,000 to bring more filmmakers to Atlanta for the 2014 Atlanta Film Festival has ended with great success. Passing the $13,000 goal on day 22, the festival secured the funds needed to more than triple its filmmaker travel budget. Kickstarter campaigns only work if you raise at least 100% of your set goal.

After 360 backers contributed a total of $17,909, the festival will now be able to use that money to pay for the filmmakers behind its 2014 lineup to attend the festival, enriching the experience for everyone involved.

The festival issued this statement on the campaign page:

Our profound thanks to the more than 300 backers who helped us raise meet and exceed our goal. Thanks to you, we'll be able to bring more filmmakers to the festival in the Spring of 2014 to share the experience with you.  

If you missed the funding deadline and want to secure your Pass to the festival, head over to this page. Just want to support the festival? This page can help you do that.

While this is a remarkable achievement, it is just one sign of the great things to come at the Atlanta Film Festival. No doubt on its way to being a destination festival for filmmakers and film-fans alike, the nearly 40-year-old organization is a cultural institution for the city, for Georgia and for the Southeast.

Stay tuned—in the coming weeks, we will preview some of the first films programmed for the 2014 lineup.

Atlanta Film Festival seeks to bring more filmmakers to town through crowdfunding

As it inches closer to the big 4-0 (the 2014 festival will mark its 38th birthday), the Atlanta Film Festival is simultaneously expanding its reach and refining its brand. This year, a record 3,194 films from 103 countries were submitted to the festival, creating an incredible opportunity for a rich and diverse event next March.

As one of the Southeast's premiere festival events, ATLFF aims to make its mark as a can't-miss-opportunity for filmmakers. While a part of every organization's budget is for filmmaker hospitality—travel expenses, accommodations, food, transportation, etc.—most festivals are simply too large and operating at too small a budget to provide compensation for most filmmakers to attend. Many are able to come and support their film on their own dime, but it is not always a guarantee.

The Atlanta Film Festival hopes to triple the number of filmmakers it can bring into town for the 2014 festival, launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise $13,000 to help them do so. The way Kickstarter works, they must raise all of the money, or they don't receive any of the money. Bringing more artists and filmmakers to Atlanta is, of course, a good enough reason to pledge your support, but ATLFF is offering some pretty sweet incentives at a variety of pledge levels.

Please watch the video above and check out the Kickstarter campaign. Your support—even a little—will go a long way towards making the 2014 Atlanta Film Festival an even more incredible event.

RIFF review: "FrackNation" (***)

Carol Collier and Phelim McAleer appear in "FrackNation"

“FrackNation” is a feature documentary from directors Phelim McAleer, Ann McElhinney and Magdalena Segieda. Funded by donations through Kickstarter, the film is essentially a rebuttal to the 2010 juggernaut doc, “Gasland." In that film, Pennsylvania resident Josh Fox, narrates his journey while focusing on how natural gas drilling and fracking are bad for the communities involved as well as the environment as whole. “Gasland," being the powerful, informative work that it was, garnered a lot of attention, not only from audiences and activists alike, but also from the Academy.