Flicks - Brian Newman leaves IMAGE

Brian Newman, executive director of IMAGE Film and Video Center, is leaving his position and Atlanta after four years on the job. Newman will stay through the Atlanta Film Festival in June and then relocate with his fiancee to New York City, where he is investigating job prospects.

During his time at IMAGE, Newman successfully resuscitated talks of moving IMAGE's operations to the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center complex on Means Street. IMAGE's monthly salon series has already moved to the Contemporary and plans are under way to move the administrative offices to the art center by the end of the summer, Newman says. There are also plans to create a temporary black box theater there, eventually to be replaced by a permanent screening room.

Newman was also instrumental in helping IMAGE move its annual Atlanta Film Festival downtown, which increased festival attendance. "But it's still not my dream festival. I want it to be twice as many people as we're getting now," he says.

Also on Newman's watch, IMAGE recently received its largest corporate gift ever — $500,000 from Turner Broadcasting, to be used over the next five years to support the Atlanta Film Festival and Out on Film.

Nevertheless, Newman says it remains "harder to raise money for the arts and get support for the arts in Atlanta than any major city I know of."

IMAGE has formed a search committee to look for a new executive director.