“We aren’t ready for a seat on the desk, we’re constructing our personal,” stated freelance producer Dominique Boyd. (Courtesy of Dominique Boyd)
Town often called the “Hollywood of the South” has lengthy attracted blockbuster productions with its beneficiant tax credit and increasing studio infrastructure. However a rising group of native filmmakers and writers imagine the town’s inventive future lies past billion-dollar franchises. Their focus? Constructing impartial writers’ rooms that heart genuine tales by and for Black and LGBTQIA+ voices.
“Independence isn’t only a alternative — for many people, it’s the one means in,” stated Atlanta-based filmmaker David Fortune. “By constructing from the bottom up, we’re creating area to inform tales on our personal phrases and laying the muse for Atlanta to turn into a real storytelling hub.”
Fortune’s debut function, Shade Guide, premiered on the 2024 Tribeca Movie Pageant and opened the Atlanta Movie Pageant, making historical past as the primary domestically produced movie to take action. The black-and-white drama follows a father and his son with Down syndrome as they navigate grief and connection throughout a day-long quest to attend a baseball recreation.
“Too typically, productions come right here, shoot the town after which depart with out capturing the essence of our group,” Fortune stated. “If I’m telling Atlanta tales, I’m not going to movie them some place else like New York or LA. I would like the town to be the backdrop as a result of that’s the place the tales reside.”
Whereas Atlanta has turn into a go-to vacation spot for productions from Marvel Studios and Netflix, many native creators argue the infrastructure growth has not translated into alternative for homegrown expertise. Writers, administrators and showrunners stay underrepresented and under-resourced — a disconnect that Fortune and others hope to deal with by impartial storytelling.
“I wish to construct one thing sustainable — whether or not it’s fellowships, writers’ rooms or perhaps a movie pageant devoted to celebrating Atlanta’s indie work,” he stated. “It’s about constructing one thing significant and resourceful, constructed with intention.”
The ability of Atlanta’s inventive power isn’t misplaced on nationwide productions both. “What Atlanta introduced for us, it can’t be understated on the way it helped create this present for us,” stated Damione Macedon, co-showrunner of “Genius: MLK/X,” in an interview with Atlanta Journal. Macedon credited the town’s tradition and historical past for grounding the sequence in emotional fact.
That, in keeping with native advocates, is proof of idea: Town’s artists and communities usually are not simply backdrops — they’re inventive engines. “The reality is, infrastructure alone doesn’t construct a sustainable trade,” stated Dominique Boyd, an award-winning freelance producer. “It’s the folks behind the scenes — the writers, administrators, editors and showrunners — who form tradition.”
Boyd is one among many creatives concerned in constructing writers’ collectives throughout Atlanta — casual however intentional areas the place Black and queer voices craft new narratives, typically with out the funding or validation of conventional studios. “We aren’t ready for a seat on the desk; we’re constructing our personal,” Boyd stated.
Fortune echoed that ethos: “The whole lot begins with the author. It’s about sitting down, opening your laptop computer and committing to telling tales that replicate your group actually and intimately. That’s the basis of change.”
The current Writers Guild of America strike targeted nationwide consideration on honest pay, streaming residuals and protections in opposition to AI. However for a lot of in Atlanta, the underlying problem is authorship and entry. With fewer gatekeepers, impartial rooms provide creators an opportunity to retain possession of their work and form narratives with out compromise.
As WIRED famous in a current function, the trade is now getting into what some describe because the MAGA period — a time when “the road between leisure and beliefs has all however disappeared.” The priority amongst Atlanta’s creatives is that with out management of their very own tales, they danger being sidelined or stereotyped on display screen.
That urgency has galvanized a brand new wave of filmmakers who see independence not simply as a method however as a necessity. “Once you’re beginning out, particularly as a Black filmmaker, the normal studio route typically isn’t an possibility,” Fortune stated. “Independence is often the start line.”
The outcomes converse for themselves. Fortune was not too long ago honored by the Atlanta Braves for Shade Guide and its depiction of household, incapacity and the town’s spirit — a second he described as deeply significant. “My greatest motivation is to pay it ahead,” he stated. “To maintain creating and elevating tales that replicate the group’s spirit in order that the seed planted in me grows and blooms into alternatives for a lot of extra.”
That sort of recognition has advocates drawing parallels to a different one among Atlanta’s cultural strongholds: music. “If Atlanta can domesticate a music scene that defines international popular culture, why can’t it do the identical for its native artists?” requested journalist Jewel Wicker in Atlanta Journal’s “How I’d Repair Atlanta” sequence.
Fortune sees an identical inventive renaissance underway in movie. “I informed my producer not too long ago that an impartial motion is brewing right here,” he stated. “Within the subsequent 10 years, I imagine Atlanta’s indie scene will develop and bloom into one thing greater.”
The way forward for Atlanta’s movie trade might rely not simply on main productions however on the assist and growth of native storytellers. As impartial creators proceed to work outdoors the normal system, their efforts are shaping a rising area for homegrown narratives — informed, written and produced within the metropolis the place they start.
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Ronesha Strickland is an Atlanta-based screenwriter and producer with greater than eight years of expertise in movie and media. Presently pursuing an MFA in movie and tv at SCAD, they’ve written for Tough Draft ATL and proceed to develop authentic content material rooted in Southern tradition and underrepresented voices.