On the occasion of both Friday the 13th and the release of the horror homage The Cabin in the Woods, GSU's Cinefest presents the Camp Blood Film Fest, a collection of vintage slasher flicks with summer camp settings. Camp used to be such a pervasive setting for B-movies, in 2011 Dad's Garage Theatre staged parodies of both camp-based horror thrillers (2010's Slaughter Camp) and camp-based T&A comedies (2011's Z.O.N.K.E.R.S.). Perhaps the most famously violent summer getaway in the canon is Camp Crystal Lake, setting of most of the Friday the 13th movies. Cinefest programs Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), maybe because it's the first in which the killer is Jason Voorhees and not his vengeful Mom from the first film:

The Camp Blood Film Fest also includes Maniac (1982), Just Before Dawn (1981), Summer Camp Nightmare (1987) and The Burning (1982), the poster of which I found totally creepy when I was a teen. The festival also features a timely feature with 1979's Piranha, in anticipation of the upcoming release of Piranha 3DD, the sequel to the remake. The original Piranha has a surprisingly impressive lineage, having been directed by Joe Dante and written by John Sayles. (Plus, its sequel, Piranha 2: The Spawning marks the directorial debut of James Cameron.)

As CL's Gwynedd Stuart pointed out last week: "Time lapse videos are fun. As a society, we love them. Probably because we're impatient, and would live our lives fast forwarding through things with remote controls like in the movie 'Click,' a plot we'd be familiar with if we hadn't fast forwarded through the whole thing. It was for the best."

Before the 2012 Atlanta Film Festival wrapped yesterday, it threw down at the Goat Farm Thursday with the ATLFF 12 Music Experience. Filmmaker Joey Shanks captured the evening with a time-lapse quickie:

Atlanta Film Festival time-lapse "The Goat Farm" after-party from Joey Shanks on Vimeo.

• Courtesy Andrew Garrison

But Austin choreographer Allison Orr likewise finds beauty and grace in trucks. The artist joined city sanitation workers on their daily routes to listen, learn, and ultimately to convince them to collaborate in a unique dance performance. After months of rehearsal, two dozen trash collectors and their trucks performed an extraordinary spectacle on an abandoned airport runway, and the whole process was captured by film-maker Andrew Garrison. His documentary Trash Dance will screen as part of the Atlanta Film Festival on Saturday, March 31, at 12:45 p.m. at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema.

TRASH DANCE - Trailer from Andrew Garrison on Vimeo.

The 2012 Atlanta Film Festival offers a preview of coming attractions by announcing a handful of titles to be included this year. "This year's festival will have more movies with Georgia ties than any previous Atlanta Film Festival line-up," announces the press release. The titles in question include:
V/H/S, the found-footage, anthology-style horror film, featuring a chapter by David Bruckner (and a success at this year's Sundance Film Festival);
That's What She Said, a comedy starring Anne Heche, directed by Macon native Carrie Preston
John Portman: A Life in Building, about the famed architect and shaper of the Atlanta skyline;
AKA Blondie, a profile of the dancer, poet and all-around star attraction of the Clermont Lounge (see the trailer below); and
Hurry Up and Wait, a musical documentary about the locally-based alternative rock band Gringo Star.

The 36th Annual Atlanta Film Festival runs March 23 — April 1 at Landmark Midtown Art Cinema, the Plaza Theatre, The Strand Theatre, The Goat Farm and other locations.

• Out On Film
• Out On Film is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year.

Out On Film(OOF), Atlanta's LGBT film festival, is kicking off 2012 by celebrating its 25th anniversary. OOF is one of the largest LGBT festivals in the nation, although OOF started as a division of Atlanta Film Festival. In 2008 Out On Film became an independent, LGBT-run organization.

In the past, OOF has played host to some major films with LGBT themes, including The Broken Hearts Club, Transamerica, Brokeback Mountain and Dream Boy, among others. Brokeback Mountain, which had great success in the mainstream market, was also awarded three Academy Awards including Best Director.

In addition to the annual festival OOF holds in early October, Out On Film will be hosting varoius events throughout the year. On Thursday, Jan. 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the Midtown Art Cinema, OOF will be screening the film "Gen Silent." This film from Stu Maddux examines the aging LGBT community, from the aspect that sometimes the elderly members of the LGBT community are being neglected or discriminated against in nursing homes. This film tells the story of the LGBT community that was heavily discriminated against in their youth, who now avoid care and help in their old age because of those memories of discrimination.

The proceeds from this screening will go towards a fundraiser for SAGE Atlanta, an organization dedicated to enriching the lives of the LGBT elderly community in Atlanta. Check the Out On Film events page for more screenings this year here.

• Courtesy Chris Escobar
• Atlanta Film Festival Executive Director Chris Escobar

As for changes to the festival, I think what you'll see is both a return to certain missed festival elements and an exploration of some new ones. We're bringing back our pass use as had existed in prior years, re-centralizing our operations and activity like ticketing, filmmaker lounge, etc. to be back at Landmark.

We've made pass prices much more attainable, and are adding a second block of competing animation shorts for the academy-award qualification. More excitedly, while we will still be holding the majority of the festival at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema, we're working on finalizing partnerships with select Atlanta-gem venues to have screenings on different nights during the week days of the festival. We've shifted our schedule to both a month earlier in the year and by a day of the week to include two full weekends. We're also including music as a more present component of the festival. We've launched a music video block that will be treated much like a short film block, programming several feature-films with music themes and having more live performances during festival events. There are lots more additions...

Ultimately, the major changes only begin at the festival and grow from there to our year-round programs through various strategic partnerships with other organizations and institutions—Georgia State University being the first. What you'll see develop are major strides in our educational programming, engaging and intriguing films, exciting and unique events and reaching a vastly larger audience! You will see a revival of some favorites and some terrific new additions for what I think could be considered the New Atlanta Film Festival.

The ATL Short Cuts Film Contest strikes back in 2012. Following last year's inaugural contest and its theme of Atlanta neighborhoods, this year we invite would-be filmmakers to consider the Atlanta music scene. Films should be five minutes or less and involve some aspect of local music, ranging from narratives to performances to music videos.

What's in it for you? For finalists, an open-to-the-public screening complete with complimentary snacks and performances that gives you a chance to drum up support for your film — viewers will vote at the screening and online. There will be two big winners — the Critics Choice and the Viewers Choice — and two runners-up. All four films will be screened at the Atlanta Film Festival, and the first-place winners will also receive tickets to the Atlanta Film Festival, an exclusive meet-and-greet with ATLFF filmmakers, and more prizes to be announced.

For more detailed rules, check out the ATL Short Cuts Film Contest Page. You must create or log in to a YouTube account to upload your video. The deadline is Friday, Feb. 17, 5 p.m. Last Viewer's Choice award proved prophetic in both its musical theme and its take on current events:

• Paramount
• Polanski is the God of Carnage

With Martin Scorsese's Hugo and much anticipated coming release of Michel Hazanavicius's throw-back silent film The Artist topping so many year-end critics lists, and all this talk about the death of film, has there ever been a better time to reflect on the legacy of cinema than now?

Against this backdrop, Atlanta-based Turner Classic Movies announces additional films and events for its Hollywood-set TCM Classic Film Festival, set for April 12-15.

To celebrate Paramount's 100th Anniversary, the TCM Classic Film Festival focusing on the 1970's tenure of sometime studio head Robert Evans, whose maverick spirit (as chronicled in his autobiography and subsequent feature doc The Kid Stays in the Picture) produced a number of cinematic landmarks including a pair of films from from maverick directors who continue to produce interesting work today: Roman Polanski's Chinatown and Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather, Part II.

The festival line-up also features a triptych devoted to "Style in the Movies," including "The Noir Style—presented by Emory's Eddie Muller founder of the Film Noir Foundation", "Deco Design—feature films bathed in the art deco style", and "The Legendary Costumes of Travis Banton"

The complete release is below:

The great thing about vintage grindhouse horror movies is that their lack of budgets and big stars, when treated properly, can lend the movies a disturbing, documentary quality. Slick Hollywood productions feel more like fantasies, while the most effective grindhouse movies feel like something that actually happened. Screening Nov. 11-13 at the Plaza Theatre, the Buried Alive Film Festival of indie horror movies doesn't cater exclusively to retro-grindhouse films. Featuring five features and 30 shorts, the festival definitely gives props the trend of modern throwbacks to the cheap B-movies of 1960s and 1970s drive-ins.

One of the most intriguing entries, the horror-comedy Chillerama, pays homage to as many schlocky genres as possible. Set at a drive-in, the anthology includes: "I Was a Teenage Werebear," a spoof of Rebel Without a Cause, Grease and The Twilight Saga and set in 1962; Wadzilla, a parody of 1950s monster movies; "The Diary of Anne Frankenstein," satirizing the Diary of Anne Frank and Hitler's Germany; and and "Zom B Movie", a spoof of zombie films. Here's the trailer: