Film Festival: The Venues

The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is returning to familiar places this year, with one addition and a few upgrades.

The big addition to the venue lineup is SCADshow, the former 14th Street Playhouse upgraded by the Savannah College of Art and Design. SCADshow (173 14th St., Midtown) got a tryout Sept. 19 with the festival’s special screening of “Labyrinth of Lies,” Germany’s entry for the foreign-language Oscar at next month’s Academy Awards.

The theater, which seats 375, was a big hit, and it figures to be one of the stars of the festival’s opening week. Among other screenings, SCADshow will play host to the ACCESS Night party and showing of “Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong” on Thursday, Jan. 28, and one of two showings of David Broza’s “East Jerusalem West Jerusalem” documentary with a post-film performance by Broza on Saturday, Jan. 30.

“SCAD has done a beautiful job of reinventing the space,” festival Executive Director Kenny Blank said. “It’s a beautiful, sexy space.”

The main upgrade will come closing night Feb. 16, when “In Search of Israeli Cuisine” will be shown at the Woodruff Arts Center’s Symphony Hall (1280 Peachtree St., Midtown) instead of its Rich Auditorium, a change that Blank said will roughly double the audience capacity.

Blank said those new venues, combined with upgrades at other locations and clever operational engineering by Associate Director Brad Pilcher, will add about 5,000 seats to the total festival capacity this year.

Part of the expanded capacity comes from running at three venues at the same time, something the festival never attempted in its first 15 years.

As it has the past two years, the festival will open Jan. 26 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre (2800 Cobb Galleria Parkway, Cumberland area), providing the capacity for more than 2,000 people to watch “Remember.”

The other venues, back from last year: