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Off The Wall @725 Ponce Returns With Monthly Film Series on Largest Screen in the South

Special film series Kicks Off With the Atlanta Premiere of Bruce Conner’s CROSSROADS Friday, June 20 & Saturday, June 21

 

The South’s largest screen, located along the Atlanta Beltline at 725 Ponce, sets the stage for this year’s Off The Wall @ 725 Ponce—a free monthly film series celebrating experimental cinema, video art, and cult classics. Now in its third year, the series runs on the third weekend of each month from June through November. Cinephiles and casual passersby alike are invited to pull up a lawn chair, spread out a picnic blanket, or snap a selfie—for a quintessentially Atlanta experience under the stars where Off The Wall projects directly onto the facade of an eight-story building. 

 

Presented by 725 Ponce and curated by Gregory Zinman, Off The Wall @ 725 Ponce brings free, innovative public programming at the crossroads of art, transit and culture. Follow Off the Wall @ 725 on  Instagram.

 

The series kicks off at 9 p.m. on Friday, June 20 and Saturday, June 21, with the Atlanta premiere of Crossroads (1976), pioneering experimental filmmaker Bruce Conner’s haunting and meditative film that uses found footage of the first hydrogen bomb test conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll on July 25, 1946—code-named Operation Crossroads. The film is a landmark in avant-garde cinema and widely regarded as one of Conner’s masterpieces.

 

“Conner’s film is an undisputed masterpiece,” said Zinman. “We’re honored to present its Atlanta premiere — a bold and poetic work that perfectly sets the tone for our series showcasing the very best in experimental film and video from around the world, always free and open to everyone.”

 

The cinematic journey continues on Friday, July 18 and Saturday, July 19 at 9 p.m., with the Atlanta premiere of animator Jodie Mack’s The Grand Bizzare (2018), a multimedia travelogue about textiles. 

 

Then on Friday, August 15 and Saturday, August, 16 at 8:30 p.m., Off The Wall presents New Directions, an international all-star group show demonstrating startling new forms of the moving image, with short films made with quantum computing, LIDAR, cutting-edge animation, AI, NFTs, and deepfake technologies – all of which are Atlanta premieres. 

 

In September, award-winning filmmaker and physicist Mark Levinson’s The Universe in a Grain of Sand (2024) is a visually stunning meditation on how scientists and artists alike harness their understanding of nature to explore the universe’s deepest mysteries. Weaving together groundbreaking scientific revolutions with the work of more than forty artists, Levinson’s film is a celebration of human imagination and its power to transcend boundaries. It makes its Atlanta premiere Friday, September 17 and Saturday, September 18.

 

Levinson will be giving an artist’s talk at Emory in conjunction with the screening.

 

Atlanta artist William Downs will use the façade of 725 Ponce as his canvas, drawing his evocative murals in real time via a tablet positioned on the Beltline, on Friday, October 17 and Saturday, October 18.

 

Downs will be giving an artist’s talk at Emory in conjunction with the screening.

 

Off The Wall concludes Friday, November 14 and Saturday, November 15 with Empire (2008-2012), Phil Solomon’s response to Andy Warhol’s eight-hour portrait of the Empire State Building, created after the filmmaker spent weeks playing Grand Theft Auto IV to attain a similar vantage point in the video game. 

 

Gregory Zinman is an associate professor in Emory College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Film and Media. In addition to Off The Wall @ 725, he and Andy Ditzler recently curated the experimental program THE BIG SCREEN at the Plaza Theater as part of Ditzler’s Film Love series for an audience of nearly 350. Zinman has also curated Off the Wall @ Atlanta Contemporary.

Prior to Off The Wall, Zinman programmed film and media art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of the Moving Image, and several other museums and festivals.

Earlier this year, he was awarded a $50,000 Arts Writers Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant program to support the research and writing of his book, Public Scenes: Media Art Outside the Gallery and Museum.

He is the author of Making Images Move: Handmade Cinema and Other Arts and co-editor of We Are Open Circuits: Writings by Nam June Paik. His writing on film and media has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic and the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies.

725 Ponce is a 372,000-square-foot Class-A office tower owned and managed by Cousins Properties. Located in the heart of Atlanta’s iconic BeltLine corridor, the building blends modern industrial architecture with thoughtful design, public art, and premium amenities to create a dynamic workplace experience. With direct access to the BeltLine Eastside Trail, 725 Ponce offers unparalleled walkability to restaurants, entertainment, and green space. The property is home to Off the Wall, a curated public art program celebrating the spirit and culture of Atlanta through vibrant, large-scale installations. As a hub of innovation, connectivity, and community, 725 Ponce reflects the energy and evolution of the city itself.

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