The Atlanta Film Festival (ATLFF) was founded in 1976 as the Atlanta Independent Film & Video Festival. The ten-day festival is one of the oldest in the country and one of only two-dozen Academy Award-qualifying festivals in the United States. A cultural institution for the city of Atlanta, ATLFF has continued to grow and solidify its status as one of the most important arts events in the Southeastern United States. Plenty of today's biggest names in film screened their earliest works at ATLFF, among them—Spike Lee, Robert Rodriguez, James Ponsoldt, David Gordon Green and Ray McKinnon, who won the Live Action Short Academy Award for is film "The Accountant" in 2002 after qualifying at ATLFF.
Championing independent voices by programming cutting edge films and introducing new voices to Atlanta audiences, the festival's primary mission from day one has been to support creators and to expose Atlanta and the Southeast to films they could never see elsewhere.
Every year, the lineup showcases an incredible diversity in programming, from a bevy of animated features and shorts to a wide range of international narratives and documentaries. During weekday mornings and afternoons, the ATLFF Creative Conference features panel discussions, master classes and workshops covering a broad spectrum of industry topics, from screenwriting and financing independent films to marketing music videos and sustaining yourself as an actor.
