“Capturing the Spirit” Halloween tours have become a favorite Atlanta holiday activity.
For the past 14 years, the Historic Oakland Foundation has welcomed thousands of visitors to the grounds of Oakland Cemetery for the popular evening event. Safety concerns about the pandemic led to a clever idea for replacing the in-person tours. Acting film director Matt Huff and special events and volunteer manager Mary Fernandez spoke with “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes about turning the tours into a film.
When asked how they chose which “residents” (those who are buried) from the cemetery they would highlight in the film, Fernandez said, “Oakland is able to show a fuller story than almost anywhere else in the city. The good, the bad, the ugly. And so we look for residents that also reflect this history.”
The residents who are featured in the film range from a notorious entrepreneur, to a visually impaired radio star, to an enslaved barber, and to many other prominent Atlanta figures. “With all of the residents we go through and we talk about the idea that they lived as real people and every experience they’re referring to (in the stories) they lived,” said Huff.
He continues, “A lot of the performers that are volunteers at Oakland give tours and they speak about Oakland from a tour guide perspective, but when they become a resident, they have to speak about the resident as if they lived it.”
