SXSW 2024: New documentary looks at iconic Atlanta street party
AUSTIN, Texas - A new documentary on an iconic Atlanta street party held its world premiere at SXSW 2024.
"Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told" premiered on Tuesday, March 12, chronicling the history of the Freaknik, a street party dating back to the 1980s that drew hundreds of thousands of people to Atlanta, Georgia, during spring break.
"Some students from Atlanta University Center couldn't get home because they didn't have the money, so they wanted to have a spring picnic," said the film's director P. Frank Williams.
The picnic-turned-festival spiraled into a larger crowd each year, bringing out some of the biggest names in hip hop, according to executive producer and hip-hop artist Luke Campbell, also known as Uncle Luke.
"We were the driving force of music when it came to it," said Campbell.
The festival quickly became a party scene for college students and a part of Black history that hip-hop artists say they want to tell from their perspective.
"You think about the 4 HBCUs that sit beside each other to create this energy just out of those schools, this energy is going to come out period," said rapper and executive producer Jermaine Dupri.
"Being able to tell this story in such a unique way of describing the history of music in Atlanta, the history of Freaknik and killing some of these myths that it was just a free-for-all," said Campbell.
According to the producers, fans and those that attended the festival in the 1980s and 1990s even submitted footage for the documentary.
"We wanted to show the good, the bad and the ugly, everything that is bad can fit in the place that everything is good, and I think as filmmakers and documentarians we had to tell the whole story," said Williams.
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While many are excited about reliving the moments, others are not.
"A lot of the uproar of people talking about they were going to be in the movie and sue or something like that, by the way when you are in a public place all bets are off," said Williams. "We didn't want to embarrass anybody or do anything negative but if you and your aunties, one of them, were having a good time we might have caught them on one of those camcorders."
"There are some very important and some inspiring moments that people can take away from this documentary other than just trying to see if your mama is on a hood of a car," said Campbell.
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Campbell says the fall of the festival happened as years went by and elected officials changed.
"You had police chiefs and mayors coming in and part of their campaign slogans and part of their platforms was ‘I’m going to stop Freaknik to get me elected’," said Campbell.
Producers say although the Freaknik ended in the late 90s, it is still a part of history that should be documented.
"It is a Black history moment that needs to be told, and I am just proud that we are the guys that get to tell the story," Williams said.