About the AFCC
Co-founded in 2017 by longtime Atlanta film critics Felicia Feaster and Michael Clark, the Atlanta Film Critics Circle is an attempt to fill a void in the local film community and in the representation of Atlanta’s media on the national stage.
Composed of a dynamic mix of 25 Atlanta-based critics working in newspaper, magazine and online journalism, the AFCC’s mission is to establish a national presence for a film critics group in Atlanta and to foster a vibrant film culture in Atlanta, already home to an exploding film industry production presence.
Founding members (critics living in and/or currently writing for global, national, regional and/or Atlanta metro area outlets) of AFCC vote in early December for the group’s annual awards.
Joining the AFCC
Are you an Atlanta-based critic or do you write for a primarily Atlanta-based audience? Find out how to become an AFCC member here.
Members
Tatyana Arrington is a highly accomplished entertainment reporter known for her ability to connect with audiences and deliver engaging content. Her career took off due to her passion for all things entertainment, making her a standout in the field.
With an impressive portfolio, Tatyana has contributed her talent and expertise to renowned publications such as BBC News, ESSENCE, Where Is The Buzz, and The Atlanta Black Star. Her work on the red carpet, conducting viral celebrity interviews, and covering premieres has made her a sought-after host in the industry. Recently, Tatyana relaunched What The Film, a hub for all things film and TV, accompanied by a weekly newsletter that shares updates in the film and TV industry with her readers in the US, UK, Canada, and Nigeria.
Nsenga K. Burton, Ph.D. is an award-winning writer, college professor and content creator. She is founder and editor-in-chief of The Burton Wire, an award-winning news blog covering news of the African Diaspora including media reviews. An expert in the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality with film and media, Nsenga has contributed to Huffington Post, The Grio, The Daily Beast, The New York Times, USA Today and serves as culture & entertainment editor for Black Press USA Newswire. She is a former editor-at-large for The Root and cultural critic for Creative Loafing. A "jackie of all trades," Nsenga uses her expertise in film and media to curate media related programming. Most recently, Dr. Burton curated the Cinematheque, "African Americans in American Film," which was held at Emory University and AfroComicCon's 2020 Virtual International Film Festival. Dr. Burton is a professor of film and media at Emory University where she serves as co-director of the Film and Media Management concentration. She is a member of the Society of Cinema and Media Studies and immediate past co-chair of the Black Caucus. Nsenga is also a member of the African American Film Critics Association and the NAACP Image Awards Nominating Committee. You can see and hear Nsenga on radio, tv and new media waxing poetic about media and society on her bi-monthly livestream on Black Press USA Newswire. Follow Nsenga on Twitter or Instagram @Ntellectual or @TheBurtonWire. Nsenga holds degrees in film and media studies from Northwestern University, New York University, University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California.
Christopher Campbell is a Senior Editor at Film School Rejects and the founding editor of Nonfics as well as a regular contributor to Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, Oz Magazine, and others. A transplant from the Northeast, he has been writing film criticism and covering entertainment news since the early 2000s and has specialized in documentaries for the past decade. In addition to being a member of the AFCC, he is the President of the Documentary Branch of the Critics Choice Association, for which he leads the annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards.
Originally from Washington, D.C., AFCC co-founder Michael Clark has written for over 30 local and national film industry media outlets (including the Gwinnett Daily Post from 1995-2020). Since 2017, he has contributed film criticism and industry-related essays to Newsmax Media, the Federalist, and the Epoch Times and is a weekly contributor to the Shannon Burke Show on floridamanradio.com.
Jake Cole is a freelance film critic born and raised in Atlanta. His work has appeared in publications such as Slant Magazine, Hyperallergic, Little White Lies, MTV and Brooklyn Magazine.
Meghan Cooper is a freelance journalist, content creator and movie/TV critic in Atlanta. She writes primarily about entertainment and enjoys creating recipes and crafts that are entertainment-themed on her website JaMonkey. She has a focus on family-friendly entertainment options for the modern family. Meghan has been featured on Fox 5 Atlanta, CBS Atlanta, Simply Buckhead, Best Self Atlanta and ABC Nightly News. Find her on social media @JaMonkey.
Rebecca Daniel has been passionate about film since viewing The Sound of Music as a child. She is a freelance writer born and raised in the Atlanta area. Rebecca has been reviewing films since 2013. She is the founder of Show Me The Movies. You can find her on Twitter @rebeccadaniel95.
Jason Evans has been talking about film on Atlanta radio and TV stations for close to 2 decades. He has written about movies for the Wall Street Journal's entertainment section and CNN. He currently writes 100-word- reviews for the website FlixChat.
Jim Farmer has written about the arts and served as a critic for more than two decades now for outlets such as The Georgia Voice and ArtsATL. Jim also coordinates Out On Film, Atlanta's Oscar-qualifying LGBTQ film festival. He lives in Avondale Estates with his husband Craig and dog Douglas.
Atlanta Film Critics Circle co-founder Felicia Feaster has a B.A. in film studies from the University of Florida and an M.A. in film from Emory University. She is the co-author of Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Film and has appeared on Turner Classic Movies’ Filmstruck, on CNN and lectured at the Film Forum in NYC. Her film writing has appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta magazine, Cineaste, Travel Channel, HGTV, Film Quarterly and Art Papers.
Matt Goldberg is the Senior Editor in charge of film for Collider. He’s been writing about movies and television professionally since 2006 and has covered numerous film festivals including the Sundance Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Atlanta Film Festival, the International Film Festival & Awards – Macao, and the Riviera Maya Film Festival. During his time with Collider, he's written numerous reviews, interviews, features, and editorials in addition to daily coverage of entertainment news. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and their dog, Jack.
Devindra Hardawar is a co-host of The Filmcast, one of the longest-running movie podcasts, and a Senior Editor at Engadget, where he often covers the intersection of tech and entertainment. Find him on Twitter at @devindra if you want to go deep on the Fast and Furious films, or if you want to talk about the magic of '90s anime.
Entertainment journalist and film critic Jonathan W. Hickman is also an attorney, novelist, college professor and filmmaker. As an attorney through his website FilmProductionLaw.com, Jonathan handles the production and distribution legal needs for feature films. As a filmmaker, he serves as editor, writer, director and director of photography on narrative and documentary projects. As a college professor, Jonathan teaches media law and ethics at the University of North Georgia.
Born and raised in the Metro Atlanta area, Jay Ledbetter is a writer and podcaster for InSession Film. His weekly podcast, InSession Film: Extra Film, focuses on classic and independent cinema. Jay has been reviewing films since 2013.
Will Leitch is a film critic for Vulture and hosts the weekly Grierson & Leitch movie podcast. He also is a contributing editor for New York magazine, the founder of Deadspin and the author of six books, including the recent novels How Lucky and The Time Has Come.
Hannah Lodge graduated from Indiana University with a degree in journalism. She now freelances and co-runs ScreenRex.com, a site dedicated to film and television analysis. She loves writing about movies almost as much as she loves her dogs.
Emma Loggins is the Founder Editor of FanBolt and Women's Business Daily. She has also written for CNN, Autotrader and a variety of other publications. You can follow her on Twitter at @EmmaLoggins.
Astrid Martinez is an Emmy-winning national correspondent for CBS News where she covers a wide range of topics including, entertainment, social and cultural issues.
Mike McKinney is the film critic for the CBS-owned Atlanta affiliate website CWAtlanta.com. Mike also writes for his website LastOneToLeaveTheTheatre.com, where he does short one-paragraph film reviews. On the CWAtlanta website, he reviews films, specializing in indies, interviews people in the entertainment industry and writes Preview This!, a weekly look of movies releasing that week. Mike is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a major in film.
The switch flipped for Kip Mooney when his parents took him and his sister to see a revival of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window in 2000. After that, movies were his passion. He has previously written for the Dallas Morning News and Pegasus News. He is currently a critic for CollegeMovieReview.com, with additional bylines at Central Track, the Spool and Fresh Fiction. Originally from North Texas, Kip lives in Decatur with his wife and dog.
Steve Murray is the chief film and streaming media critic at ArtsATL. He previously worked as an arts journalist, theater and film critic at Southline and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
A graduate of The University of Alabama's film program, Spencer Perry has been covering the entertainment industry online as a journalist and critic for the better part of a decade. His work has appeared on ComingSoon.net and ComicBook.com, and his favorite movies are The Shining, Jurassic Park and An American Werewolf in London.
Scott Phillips is currently the film critic for WRBL TV-3, a CBS affiliate in Columbus, Georgia. He holds a degree in print journalism from the University of Georgia where he served as one of the film critics for the Red & Black student newspaper in the late-1980s. His film work from all of his various outlets is collected at mscottphillips.com.
Kyle Pinion is a film critic and entertainment journalist, who in his role as chief film critic for The Beat has covered a number of pop-culture events across the country centered on film, television and comic books. Kyle is a member of the Critics Choice Association (CCA), Southeastern Film Critics Association (SEFCA), a founding member of the Atlanta Film Critics Circle (AFCC), and a member of the Georgia Film Critics Association (GAFCA). His reviews can be collectively found at Rotten Tomatoes and you can find him on twitter at @kylepinion
Robert Prentice founded Three If By Space in 2011 as a fan site for TNT’s Falling Skies. The site grew to cover all things pop culture. Robert is a lover of anime, great world building, and the science fiction and fantasy genres. He is also an avid collector of anime figures and pins and has served as a panelist at multiple conventions.
An award-winning journalist and multiple Pulitzer nominee, Eleanor Ringel was the lead critic for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for almost 30 years. Also a member of the National Society of Film Critics, she has written for The Washington Post, the New York Times and Entertainment Weekly. Along with serving on juries and panels ranging from Montreal to Dallas to Miami to Washington D.C., she was the regular reviewer for CNN, MSNBC, and WXIA, the local ABC affiliate.
Matt Rodriguez is the owner and chief editor of the entertainment reviews website Shakefire. Having worked as a film critic in the Atlanta area since 2007, he has reported on Hollywood and the entertainment industry through reviews, news, celebrity interviews and festival coverage. You can follow him on Twitter at @ImMattRodriguez and on Instagram at @MatthewMRodriguez.
Josh Sewell has been a film critic since 2002 and currently writes for the Times-Georgian and the Douglas County Sentinel. He also has a weekly movie segment on KISS 102.7 FM and teaches at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton. You can reach him on Twitter at @IAmJoshSewell.
Steve Warren has been reviewing movies for over 50 years, first on radio (WGKA), then in print (Creative Loafing, Georgia Voice) and online. He only lived in Atlanta about half that time but through self-syndication has almost always had a local outlet or two. His current home is in Sarasota, FL, but his heart remains in Atlanta.
Drew Wheeler has been the primary movie reviewer for Athens, Georgia's Flagpole Magazine since 2004 when he reviewed Van Helsing, which he really wanted to like. When pressed, he claims John Carpenter's Halloween as his favorite movie.
