Alma Film Festival Brings Five Days of Cinema, Cultural Inquiry and Emerging Technology to Atlanta
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Ent-Tech (Innovation & Discovery Expo) and the Afro-Mosaic Cinema Summit will bring scholars, filmmakers, artists, innovators, and cultural leaders together September 30–October 4 for a cross-disciplinary gathering connecting Atlanta to an expanding international network.
ATLANTA — The Alma Film Festival will bring its global platform to Atlanta September 30–October 4, 2026, for five days spanning cinema, scholarship, artificial intelligence, immersive media, cultural history, music, and international exchange.
Presented through Ent-Tech (Innovation & Discovery Expo) and the Afro-Mosaic Cinema Summit, the gathering moves from an opening cultural salon in Castleberry Hill to a day of scholarship at Morehouse College; from international cinema and questions of cultural reclamation to emerging technologies reshaping how entertainment is created, financed, experienced and distributed.
The program will feature Gullah Geechee cultural interpreter Dr. Ron Daise; Swiss filmmaker Rachel M’Bon and her award-winning documentary Je suis noire (Becoming a Black Woman); futurist and creative technologist Anatola Araba; Grammy-winning producer Darryl Swann; Emmy-winning filmmaker Alahna Lark; emerging creators and technology companies; and virtual participants joining conversations from across Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and the Pacific.
Underlying the five days is a central proposition: the future of storytelling cannot be separated from questions of culture, history, access, authorship and who has the power to define the narratives that travel around the world.
Ent-Tech examines the technologies and emerging models altering entertainment—from artificial intelligence, XR and animation to independent financing, music, production and distribution—while emphasizing direct interaction between audiences and the people building those tools.
The Afro-Mosaic Cinema Summit approaches cinema from another direction, bringing filmmakers into conversation with scholars, cultural practitioners and communities to examine the histories and cultural frameworks that shape both how stories are told and how they are understood.
Together, the two platforms connect technology with cultural intelligence—and Atlanta with a broader Alma ecosystem encompassing more than 150 stakeholders across 42 countries, with particular attention to ideas and voices emerging from the Global South.
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FIVE-DAY PROGRAM AT A GLANCE
The Alma Film Festival’s Ent-Tech (Innovation & Discovery Expo) and Afro-Mosaic Cinema Summit will unfold across Atlanta September 30–October 4, bringing together scholars, filmmakers, artists, innovators, technologists and cultural leaders from Atlanta and across Alma’s international ecosystem.
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| Channel Seven brings Hampton Roads’ creative pulse to Alma with a genre-blurring mix of sound, style and performance. |
The week opens at Palate Atlanta Tasting Room in historic Castleberry Hill with an intimate evening of wine, food, performance and conversation designed to bring Alma’s international network into direct contact with Atlanta’s creative, academic, cultural, business and technology communities.
Hampton Roads multidisciplinary collective Channel Seven will bring its mix of music, fashion, visual art, live instrumentation and DJ-driven sound to the evening and select events throughout the week. The opening also features international wine tastings conducted by Behind the Pour and a boutique theater performance from Blue Bistro Theatre featuring Robin Antoinette.
For Complete Day 1 Details - Click Here
At Morehouse College, the summit turns to 1526 and the deeper historical narratives that continue to inform contemporary questions of culture, identity and resistance.
The day is shaped by the research of Dr. Samuel T. Livingston of Morehouse College’s Africana Studies Department and opens with a keynote address from acclaimed author, educator, performer and Gullah Geechee cultural interpreter Dr. Ron Daise at the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel.
Afternoon programming moves into a series of think tanks, roundtables, panels and symposia bringing scholarship into direct public conversation.
For Complete Day 2 Details - Click Here
Friday places cinema at the center of a larger inquiry into memory, identity, and the power of communities to define themselves.
Among the featured works is Je suis noire (Becoming a Black Woman), directed by Rachel M’Bon and co-directed by Juliana Fanjul. The film received Best Documentary at the 2026 Alma Film Festival, where M’Bon became the inaugural recipient of the festival’s Dr. Cornel West Award for Global Truth & Cultural Conscience.
The screening leads into a recorded public conversation examining what Alma describes as a Renaissance of Reclamation—a broader movement across the African diaspora and Global South toward recovering obscured histories, challenging inherited narratives and reclaiming cultural self-definition.
For Complete Day 3 Details - Click Here
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| Futurist, filmmaker and creative technologist: Anatola Araba |
Rather than a conventional trade-show floor, Ent-Tech is structured around interaction: audiences engaging directly with emerging technologies, platforms and the people creating them.
Featured participants include Anatola Araba and R3imagine; Sharif Bennett and CineBlock; Grammy-winning producer Darryl Swann and Moshpix XR; Cincinnati creator Tierre Hummons and the AI-powered animated project Synth City; Kandi Robinson of The Audio Plugz/Vocal Soundbox Studios; Emmy-winning filmmaker Alahna Lark and Signify TV; and Rory Walker of Urban Scenez.
Together, their work touches artificial intelligence, immersive 3D environments, animation, music, independent film financing, audience development and new approaches to distribution and intellectual-property ownership.
For Complete Day 4 Details - Click Here
The final day begins with AI, Storytelling & Community, spearheaded by Atlanta-based AI Makers Generation (AIMG), examining how artificial intelligence is altering creativity, authorship, representation, access and opportunity.
The conversation then expands beyond Atlanta.
Through Renaissance of Reclamation — Parts Two & Three, filmmakers, scholars, cultural practitioners, agencies and institutions from Alma’s international community will connect across borders, with participation spanning Fiji, Guyana, South Africa, the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Nigeria, Jamaica, Brazil, Australia, Zimbabwe, Gabon, Switzerland, Honduras and Lesotho, among others.
The week closes not simply by asking what cinema is becoming, but what a more connected global cinematic ecosystem might require—across policy, practice, cultural exchange, community and collaboration.
For Complete Day 5 Details - Click Here
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AN ATLANTA GATHERING WITH A GLOBAL REACH
The five-day program reflects the Alma Film Festival’s broader effort to use cinema as connective infrastructure—linking creative practice with scholarship, technology, cultural diplomacy and international relationship-building.
Rather than treating those disciplines as separate conversations, Ent-Tech and the Afro-Mosaic Cinema Summit place them in the same room.
The result is a week built not only around what audiences will watch or experience, but around a larger question: Who will shape the next era of storytelling—and from what cultural point of view?
EXPLORE THE FIVE-DAY PROGRAM
The individual day pages will serve as the most current source for expanded program descriptions, speakers, performances, venues, times, registration information, and newly announced participants as the program continues to develop.
MEDIA & PROGRAM INFORMATION
For additional information, media inquiries, or program participation:
festivaldirector@almafilmfestival.com
Alma Film Festival
Ent-Tech
(Innovation & Discovery Expo)
Afro-Mosaic
Cinema Summit
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