Our last deadline to submit films for the 2014 festival (March 28 - April 6) was this past Friday, and for the third year in a row, submissions for the Atlanta Film Festival have shown a remarkable increase.

The 2013 fest received 2,810 submissions, the 2014 fest hit 3,194. A historic milestone, as ATLFF has never had more than 3,000 submissions in a single period. What's equally eye-popping is that 75% of those 3,200 submissions came in by October 10th of this year. An entire month sooner than when we hit 75%* last year, as well as a full month ahead of this year's November 8th Late Deadline. Two months after we opened the 2014 call for films, we were about even with 2013. By August, submissions accelerated, not slowing down till after the Late Deadline. 

We'll take that growth and pace as a sign that we're putting on the kind of fest filmmakers are looking for. We'll also take that as a hint to how much sweat-equity we should be investing into the 2014 fest. Already some of that sweat-equity we're pouring into our "Bring #Artists2ATL" Kickstarter campaign (which coincidentally launched the same day as our last deadline). We'd like to cover the travel of as many of the filmmakers representing the 200 plus 2014 official selections as humanly possible.

Our DVD players, laptops and iPads have been fed steady diets of independent film since May. That won't be stopping anytime soon as you can guess. Fortunately, Kristy, Christina, Sailor, and I, have a great group of screeners, interns, and of course staff, assisting us in getting all these films watched. 

I believe that's enough blabbering for one evening. I'll bring this in for a landing.

Our Kickstarter plea video is below. Give it a watch when you have a free moment. Hopefully the goal will resonate, and you'll share the campaign with your own networks. Early awareness and exposure is a major key to Kickstarter success. We're only two days into the campaign, so there's time to get the word out far and wide before the December 22 pledge deadline sneaks up on us.  

Now if you'll pardon me, this stack of documentaries needs watching.

Charles
Artistic Director

*I'm known as a numbers geek if you can't tell. 

2014 Numbers by Category

FEATURES

Narrative Features
384

Documentary Features
316

EXPERIMENTAL &
MUSIC VIDEOS

Experimental Shorts
127

Music Videos
231

SHORTS

Narrative Shorts
1716

Animated Shorts
185

Documentary Shorts
201

Puppetry Shorts
34