A refreshing break from that industry norm, Atlanta’s BronzeLens Film Festival, taking place Aug. 23-27, has been dedicated since 2010 to promoting Atlanta as a film mecca for people of color. It’s an agenda that has dovetailed nicely with the increasing prominence of film production in the city.

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

In its first year, BronzeLens featured producer Will Packer, who would go on to imprint the film industry with projects like “Girls Trip” and “Straight Outta Compton,” and Ava DuVernay, who debuted her first film, “I Will Follow.”

At that debut festival, 23 films were screened. This year the festival will screen 125 films from 17 countries in expanded categories including music videos, documentary, short films, features, dance films, web series and student films.

With the growth of Atlanta’s status as a film center has come the parallel growth in BronzeLens. Last year’s festival drew 4,000 attendees and this year’s festival had 1,000 films submitted for consideration.

“We knew when we started that we would have to ‘grow our own’ audience, meaning that so many people were unaware of the opportunities and impact that film production was creating in Atlanta,” said festival founder Kathleen Bertrand.

“Now, just about every college in our city has some type of film-related program, from private colleges like Spelman, Clark-Atlanta and Morehouse, to public institutions like Georgia State and Atlanta Technical College. There’s also the state-funded Georgia Film Academy.”

This year’s BronzeLens features some timely elements including a panel on AI in film and another devoted to the 50th anniversary of hip-hop that will feature a screening of the short documentary “Song of the South” centered on Atlanta music executive Ian Burke, who helped launch the careers of Outkast, TLC and Arrested Development. Because of the ongoing writer and actor strikes in Hollywood, the annual Women SuperStar Honors, which celebrates “women of color for their achievements in front of and behind the lens,” will be postponed.

Credit: BronzeLens Film Festival

Credit: BronzeLens Film Festival

Though local festivals like the Atlanta Film Festival and the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival have been around longer, BronzeLens commands its own niche, reflecting the diversity and civil rights legacy of Atlanta as well as its status as a global crossroads for the African diaspora.

While the number of films shown and annual attendance has grown, what has changed most significantly about BronzeLens may be the city where it is held.

“I think what’s happening is we’re attracting people from all over the world,” said BronzeLens Artistic Director Deidre McDonald, who has been with the festival since its inception. “We had submissions this year from close to 60 countries.”

One of the festival’s selling points is its status as an Academy Award qualifying event for short films, as is the Atlanta Film Festival and Out on Film.

Short films are particularly strong at this year’s festival. The emotionally devastating spoken-word film “My Asian Never Felt American” blends performance, animation, found footage and a sense of indignation at the ways the American dream has been denied Asian Americans. Directed by Jami Ramberan, the heartbeat of the film is a script performed by Emmy Award-winning actor and poet Suzen Baraka.

“My Jerome” is a British acting tour de force about a mother contending with her son’s arrest for murder. “Dance in Circles” tells the story of parallel discrimination experienced by a Black and Asian woman. And the insightful short documentary “Onboard” examines Black women board members and the groundbreaking contribution of Patricia Roberts Harris, the first Black woman to sit on the board of directors of a Fortune 500 company.

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

This year’s roster of shorts also features work by several Atlantans including Ebony Blanding, whose “Hello, Goodbye” centers on an unexpected romantic triangle, and “If Heaven Had Heights,” a striking Afrofuturist fantasy written by Atlanta visual artist Fahamu Pecou.

In addition to screening the work of Georgia filmmakers, the BronzeLens Film Festival is unique for the array of genres it spotlights, from the usual features, documentaries and shorts to the less typical dance films that have remained a consistent feature of the festival since 2021.

“We’ve gotten even more dance films this year, and they’re just stunning,” said McDonald.

“The lines are blurring for filmmakers,” noted McDonald of short films like “As the Cookie Crumbles,” written and directed by Aimiende Negbenebor Sela. Featuring original music by Grammy Award-winning duo Manuel and Orlando Calzada, the film starts out like a traditional love story until the male lead breaks into dance when his girlfriend leaves him. “It is so beautifully shot,” said McDonald and “so unexpected,” for its fusion of drama and dance.

At this year’s BronzeLens, screenings and panels will for the first time be held primarily at Landmark Midtown Art Cinema, though all Cinema and Social Justice Sunday films will be screened at South Fulton’s Southwest Arts Center.

Cinema and Social Justice Sunday on Aug. 27 has been a feature of the festival from its inception. “We want to recognize the significance of Atlanta to the social justice movement,” said McDonald. Those screenings are free and open to the public.

One of the highlights of the Cinema and Social Justice Sunday slate, as well as the entire festival, is the moving documentary “Move When the Spirit Says Move: The Legacy of Dorothy Foreman Cotton.”

Directed by Ry Ferro, the beautifully realized film deals with the often overlooked women working on the front lines of the civil rights movement and the sexism that often cropped up within the ranks of these socially committed activists. The film centers on the gregarious, golden-voiced, outspoken Cotton, a galvanizing leader with a deep spiritual conviction to her civil rights work, who advocated alongside Andrew Young and Martin Luther King Jr. But Cotton also forged her own path in helping Black Americans register to vote and exercise their rights as American citizens.

The beauty of this year’s festival is how it delves into complicated social issues but also spotlights a diverse, global mix of talent, without losing its focus on Georgia’s unique film landscape.

“This year BronzeLens has a record number of films to be screened over five days,” said Bertrand. “I am very excited about the large number of excellent films from Georgia-based filmmakers.”

“There has been a much-appreciated change in the film scene that we’ve noticed,” said Bertrand of the festival’s growth. “One of the areas that makes me happiest is the increasing number of actors and crew, both above the line and below the line, that are now living in and contributing to this community.”

Festival preview

14th annual Bronze Lens Film Festival. Aug. 23-Aug. 27. $15 per film; $75 day pass; $150 Bronze pass; $75 student pass; $300 all-access pass. Cinema and Social Justice Sunday screenings are free. Landmark Midtown Art Cinema, 931 Monroe Drive, Atlanta. Southwest Arts Center, 915 New Hope Road, Atlanta. bronzelens.com.