Atlanta filmmaker David Fortune vividly remembers his first time at the Plaza Theatre . In 2014, while a film student at Morehouse College, Fortune volunteered at the Atlanta Film Festival , curious to learn more about how the industry worked. After sneaking into a screening of Dear White People , he knew: This was the career for him.

“That was the first time I became a director,” he recalls. This year, the 49th Atlanta Film Festival kicked off with a screening at the Plaza of Color Book —written and directed by David Fortune.

Today, the fate of the silver screen is more imperiled than ever, but small cinemas like the Plaza seem to have found a formula for success. In fact, Atlanta’s independently owned theaters—which also include Tara Theatre , Starlight Drive-In , The Spri

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