In “Inheritance,” that origin story is a grim one. In the rural Ohio homes of his parents and grandparents, 12-year-old Curtis grows up watching relatives ruined by drugs. He’s like a shiny penny, hopeful, bright, but as the film goes on, his light dims. He and his siblings return again and again to foster care. Relatives like his cousin J.P., who seem to kick heroin addiction, relapse.

“Inheritance” can be a hard film to watch with its spacey, reckless grown-ups passing joints back and forth while Curtis sits between them. They can’t take care of themselves, and they certainly can’t care for their children. Even the beloved grandparents Curtis ends up with are battling their own addictions.

Meanwhile, the children live in a parallel universe, playing with squirt guns and chasing each other around their cluttered home and yard while their zombie parents slowly disintegrate an arm’s length away.

Credit: Atlanta Film Festival

Credit: Atlanta Film Festival

In his director’s statement, Moyer homes in on the possibilities of connection that come with understanding. “We kept our focus on Curtis’ story with a belief that audiences would view him as representative of millions of kids in America.”

Atlanta-based filmmaker Caroline Rumley is screening another origin story at this year’s festival: “Eponymous.”

The genesis of “Eponymous” came about from Rumley watching film reels and listening to stories told by her father-in-law about his grandfather, Hiram Percy Maxim. Percy’s story loomed large in her father-in-law’s mind, and it began to do the same in Rumley’s. In addition to being an avid 16 mm filmmaker, Percy started the Amateur Cinema League in New York.

“He believed filmmaking, specifically sharing your work, could help foster peace, bringing people across seas and cultures together,” said Rumley of Percy’s faith in the power of film.

But digging a little deeper, Rumley discovered Percy created several notable inventions in his lifetime, including HAM radio and the gun silencer. And in many ways, he was following the family tradition of invention. His own father, Hiram Stevens Maxim, invented the automatic machine gun.

Narrated by Rumley, “Eponymous” uses Percy’s 16 mm films — which Maxim descendants donated to the Hartford Public Library — and a Maine film archive to tell the story of two generations of Maxims. Like other films employing archival footage (“Atomic Cafe,” “Dawson City: Frozen Time”), “Eponymous” offers a frisson of eeriness in these faded, often charming home movies that complicate the story Rumley tells about two men who both created inventions with problematic legacies and took very different paths in life.

National origins are at the center of “Acts of Reparation” about a Black woman and a white man — filmmakers Selina Lewis Davidson and Macky Alston — who delve into their families’ Southern history as both slaves and slave owners.

Credit: Atlanta Film Festival

Credit: Atlanta Film Festival

Davidson, who is Black, interviews relatives in Monroe, Louisiana, about their family history as slaves, and in the Middle Georgia town of Penfield, Alston, who is white, looks at his family’s history as slave owners. Both Davidson and Alston offer thoughtful commentary on what the past owes the present.

And in “Dandelions,” Los Angeles filmmaker Basil Mironer experiences a shattering recalibration in his own origin story. The father who nurtured him, he learns through a Facebook query from a stranger, is not his biological father. On a journey that takes Mironer back to his family’s roots in Russia, Mironer meets his biological father and the siblings he never knew he had. In the process, he creates fresh tensions back home with his stepfather and mother, who kept the long-buried secret from him.

To learn more about the potential of documentary filmmaking and the future of the medium, join filmmakers Rumley, Moyer and Mironer for a panel discussion “The Power of Documentary Film” May 2 at Tara Theatre.

“Maybe the power within these stories is that someone finds a solution to a problem or a way forward or a slice of the world they have never seen before,” said Rumley. “I just think of it as more personal storytelling and people seem to need that.”

FESTIVAL PREVIEW

Atlanta Film Festival. April 24-May 4. $18, individual tickets. All access badges $250 and up. Virtual pass to stream films and panels $125. Discounts may apply for advance purchases. Plaza Theatre, 1049 Ponce De Leon Ave., Atlanta, and Tara Theatre, 2345 Cheshire Bridge Road NE, Atlanta. atlantafilmfestival.com

The Power of Documentary Film. Panel discussion, 3:30 p.m. May 2. Tara Theatre.

“Acts of Reparation.” 7:30 p.m. April 26, Tara Theatre.

“Eponymous.” 7 p.m. April 30, Plaza Theatre.

“Inheritance.” 7 p.m. May 2. Tara Theatre.

“Dandelions.” 4 p.m. May 3. Tara Theatre.