The 2025 Spring Arts Preview: Our picks in Film+TV

For 20 years, Atlanta Docufest has championed the power of film to tell real stories in compelling ways. This year’s festival takes place March 22 and March 23 at Limelight Theater. Attendees can view some of the year’s most striking films addressing social change, personal struggles and more. Filmmakers will be present to engage with the community in live Q&As, along with other programming such as the 14-Day Film Challenge.

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Perhaps the mother of all of the city’s celebrations of film, The Atlanta Film Festival, kicks off on April 24 and runs through May 4 at the Plaza Theatre and Tara Theater. The festival is programmed every year based on more than 6,000 submissions from filmmakers all over the world. And films chosen from direct submissions make up over 90% of the program each year. The 2024 festival included tracks highlighting Black filmmakers, Latin American stories and Georgia film. The Atlanta Film Festival is an Academy Award qualifying event.

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The annual BronzeLens Film Festival is back for its 16th year, and it’s got a hybrid model on tap: an in-person festival August 20 through August 24 and online the following week. The festival has been operating since 2009 and has become one of the leading film festivals highlighting independent filmmakers of color. The festival has also helped cement Atlanta’s position as a cultural capital in film and television. Recent attendees have included Issa Rae, Julie Dash and actor Donna Biscoe.

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More Film+TV Highlights . .  .

• At The Supermarket on February 26, The Atlanta Community Press Collective will screen Everything Is Local, a film documenting the stories of the “ATL61,” a set of individuals who have been prosecuted in connection with the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement.

• The recent death of David Lynch has touched off full-blown nostalgia for the director’s output. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, screening at Tara Theatre February 28 through March 2, is an extension of Lynch’s most memorable venture in television.

• SCADFILM In Focus: True Crime, screening March 6 at SCAD, puts the focus on those behind the scenes of many well-known true crime television shows and podcasts.

• Lavender Lens is a monthly screening of queer films curated by Carrie Miller Films and presented by The Bakery. The March 12 screening features queer shorts by Atlanta filmmakers.

• Fearing no robot takeover, the first Atlanta International AI Film Festival takes off at MODEx Studio Buckhead on March 22, bringing filmmakers right to the cutting edge of technology.

• Part of Emory’s Ethics at the Movies series, This World Is Not My Own is a half live action, half animated film that chronicles the life of artist Nellie Mae Rowe. Screening on March 27.

• Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason is an unabashed view of being a Black, gay, pill-popping, cabaret performer in 1967. Screening March 27 in the Wussy Art House series at Tara Theatre.

• Every spring in Athens, the Backlight Student Film Festival screens short films made by undergraduates and graduate students from across the state of Georgia. This year’s screenings will take place March 29 and March 30.

• No Bears, Jafar Panahi’s film about defying a ban on filmmaking in Iran, screens April 16 as part of Emory Cinematheque’s spring series Film on Film — that is, film about making and engaging with film.

• GSU’s School of Film, Media and Theatre presents the Georgia State University Student Film Festival on May 4 at the Rialto Center for the Arts. Films are juried by faculty and local industry professionals.

• Celebrating little things that pack a punch, Atlanta Shortsfest delivers short films in a wide variety of genres, including horror, comedy, drama and more at Limelight Theater June 21 and June 22.

• Coming to Netflix in the spring, Straw is among the latest productions from the Tyler Perry factory. It stars Taraji P. Henson as a single mother in over her head.

More 2025 Spring Picks