Following a successful world premiere at the most recent edition of DOC NYC and a sold-out screening at the Havana Film Festival, Los Últimos Frikis, the debut documentary feature by Nicholas Brennan, has been selected to participate in the Documentary Achievement Award competition at the 37th edition of the Miami Film Festival, taking place March 6-15, and at the 21st annual Havana Film Festival New York, running April 27-May 5.
The Burnt Orange Heresy, the fifth screen adaptation of the works of late Miami noir novelist Charles Willeford, starring Mick Jagger, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Debicki and Claes Bang, will open the 37th edition of Miami Dade College (MDC)’s acclaimed Miami Film Festival, on Friday, March 6 at downtown Miami’s historic Olympia Theater.
Fernando Meirelles’ The Two Popes is the winner of the MIAMI GEMS 2019 Gigi Guermont Audience Award, at Miami Film Festival (MFF)’s annual fall extension. The festival took place October 10 to 13.
Miami Film Festival GEMS returns October 10 to 13th, 2019, with Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory starring Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz opening the Festival, and Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles’ The Two Popes starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce selected as Centerpiece.
Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory will open the Miami Film Festival’s fall season extension, Miami Film Festival GEMS 2019, scheduled for October 10 to 13, at MDC’s Tower Theater Miami.
Birds of Passage, a viscerally stunning epic on the origins of the Colombian narcotics trade directed by Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra, won the $40,000 Knight MARIMBAS Award, the top Grand Jury prize of the 36th season of Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival.
This Changes Everything, a pivotal documentary examining historic and contemporary gender inequity in the American film and television industries, will open the 36th edition of Miami Dade College’s acclaimed Miami Film Festival, on Friday, March 1st at the historic Olympia Theater. Appearing on camera are leading Hollywood women Meryl Streep, Geena Davis, Sandra Oh, Rosario Dawson, Zoe Saldana, Jessica Chastain, Taraji P. Henson, Cate Blanchett, Amandla Stenberg, Natalie Portman, Reese Witherspoon, Shonda Rhimes, Jill Soloway and many more advocating for meaningful change.
Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco[/caption]
Miami Design District (MDD) will partner with Miami Dade College (MDC) to present the acclaimed Fashion in Film Festival in the Miami Design District as part of the upcoming 36th edition of Miami Film Festival, March 1 to 10, 2019. The Fashion in Film Festival will be curated by Marketa Uhlirova, University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins.
“Cinema at its best takes us to places of wonder, and for our next edition Miami Film Festival will take cinema to a new place of wonder: the Miami Design District, one of Miami’s coolest neighborhoods,” said Miami Film Festival executive director Jaie Laplante. “We are thrilled to be expanding the 36th edition of the Festival into this oasis for culture, art, food, fashion, and film.”
“Every year Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival puts on an extraordinary and surprising program. This year, the Miami Design District is honored to co-present and host the Fashion in Film Festival through this collaboration and partnership with the Miami Film Festival and Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London. We are grateful to Cathy Leff for helping bring Fashion in Film to the District and this new and exciting partnership with the Miami Film Festival,” said Craig Robins, President & CEO of Dacra, the real estate development company behind the Miami Design District. “The District serves as a center for high fashion, luxury and design. It also is a vibrant cultural hub where creative and enriching programming comes to life that serves our community. I couldn’t think of a better place for Fashion in Film to take place. Get your tickets early.”
This special Miami edition of the London festival takes place during the final weekend of Miami Film Festival, March 8 to 10th.The program will consist of a specially curated program comprising screenings, performance, panel discussions, and chats that explore the intersection between fashion and cinema. The program will be presented at Nite Owl Theater and in Paradise Plaza, a popular convening place within the District.
“For Miami, I am interested in staging a speculative dialogue between cinema, fashion and art – as three areas of creative practice that are normally seen as separate – to consider different kinds of intersections and continuities among them. Looking at the entire history of cinema it is evident that fashion and dress have been among major concerns for filmmakers and artists working in the medium of moving image. There has been great interest in the rituals of dressing, undressing, and posing; in self-fashioning and physical transformation; in the decadently pleasurable qualities of decorative surfaces, in the poetry and uncanny tension between the organic and the artificial body – and that of disembodied clothes that assume a life of their own,” commented curator Marketa Uhlirova, co-founder and director of the annual London festival.
While the full line-up of Fashion in Film will be unveiled in late January, Uhlirova, Laplante, and Leff divulged details of the program’s opening event taking place on March 8th. In collaboration with London composer, music producer, and filmmaker Rollo Smallcombe, Uhlirova will present The Inferno Unseen, their own assemblage of rushes from the kinetically experimental visuals of Henri-George Clouzot’s The Inferno, starring Romy Schneider, one of the most tantalizing uncompleted projects in film history. Smallcombe will accompany the presentation with live music. A Festival party on the rooftop deck of Paradise Plaza will complete the evening.
Miami Design District and Miami Film Festival’s announcement was unveiled at a reception in one of the future venues for the program, Nite Owl Theater, and was accompanied by a screening of James Crump’s new fashion documentary Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion & Disco, courtesy of Film Movement.
Miami Film Festival is the only major film festival produced and presented worldwide by a college or university. MDC is also home to the renowned Miami Fashion Institute which has also used film as a teaching tool with its popular film series.
Birds of Passage (Pájaros de verano)[/caption]
Miami Film Festival unveiled the full line-up of the GEMS 2018, the Fall edition of the annual festival, opening with Colombia’s Oscar submission Birds of Passage (Pájaros de Verano) and closing with Spain’s Oscar submission Champions (Campeones).
Miami Film Festival GEMS takes place October 11 to 14, at MDC’s Tower Theater Miami.
Bárbara Lennie, the acclaimed and much in-demand Goya-winning Spanish actress, will accept the Festival’s Precious Gem Award prior to the presentation of her newest film, Petra, directed by Jaime Rosales. Lennie also joins Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Ricardo Darín in Oscar-winner Asghar Farhadi’s Everybody Knows (Todos lo saben), which will also play at GEMS. Lennie’s other recent roles are well-known to Miami Film Festival audiences – her 2018 film A Sort of Family won the Festival’s Knight Competition Grand Prize, and her 2017 film Maria (And Everybody Else) won the Festival’s HBO Ibero-American Feature Film Award.
Cinematographer Diego García, touted as a strong contender for his first Oscar nomination for shooting Paul Dano’s directorial debut, Wildlife, starring Cary Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal, will receive the Festival’s Art of Light Award and participate in a conversation about his craft prior to the Florida premiere of Wildlife. Garcia’s previous credits include his Fenix Award-winning work on Gabriel Mascaro’s Neon Bull, and previous Miami Film Festival selections Cemetery of Splendor (2015) and The Darkness (2017). García will additionally lead a Master Class on Cinematography for attending local industry members and film students.
Returning for a second consecutive year to Miami Film Festival GEMS is the virtual reality (VR) sidebar Virtual Escape, in partnership with MDC’s Miami Animation & Gaming International Complex (MAGIC). Festivalgoers will experience five projects of 360°, VR and Alternative Gaming available through the entire GEMS weekend.
This year’s edition of GEMS will feature two distinct sections. The Spotlight Stage will feature high-profile, major-interest films from internationally renowned directors, many of which are in strong contention for Academy Award nominations. The Discovery Stage will feature new filmmakers creating some of the year’s most interesting debut work, breaking out into international prominence.
Miami Film Festival unveiled the official poster for the 36th edition of the Festival taking place March 1 to 10, 2019, designed by renowned Spanish artist, illustrator and painter Ana Juan.
“Ana Juan’s delightful creation to represent Miami Film Festival’s 36th season evokes the color and playfulness of Miami, with a beautiful femininity that captures our moment,” said Miami Film Festival’s executive director Jaie Laplante.
Juan, a frequent contributor of cover art to The New Yorker magazine, has had numerous solo exhibitions of her work over the past 30 years and received a multitude of international awards and prizes, including the National Illustration Award from Spain’s Ministry of Culture in 2010.
Of her creation for this year’s Miami Film Festival poster, Juan stated: “A flower is color, color is life, life is passion and passion makes a dream become true: The dream of cinema.”
The Festival also announced the first four titles for its fall season festival extension, MIAMI FILM FESTIVAL GEMS 2018, scheduled for Oct. 11 – 14. The four films are further distinguished as the first nominees announced for the Festival’s Jordan Ressler First Feature Award competition, which presents a jury-selected $10,000 cash prize to the best film by a filmmaker making their feature narrative debut. The Award is courtesy of the South Florida family of the late Jordan Ressler, an aspiring screenwriter whose life was tragically cut short before he could realize his dream. The Ressler family recently renewed their commitment to the Award through 2023.
The four announced nominees are:
DIAMANTINO (Portugal, directed by Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt). A delirious off-beat comedy about the world’s premiere soccer star and underwear model who tumbles from grace due to an evildoer’s plot. Winner of the 2018 Grand Prix NESPRESSO at La Semaine de la Critique, Cannes.
THE HEIRESSES (LAS HEREDERAS) (Paraguay, directed by Marcelo Martinessi). Two upper-class women who have discreetly been a couple for more than 30 years go through a crisis when their worsening financial situation forces them to begin selling off their family heirlooms, and one partner goes to jail for fraud. Winner of numerous international prizes, including the Alfred Bauer Prize and Best Actress for Ana Brun at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival.
HOPELESSLY DEVOUT (MI QUERIDA COFRADÍA) (Spain, directed by Marta Díaz de Lope Díaz). Winner of Audience Award at 2018 Malaga Film Festival, an uproarious screwball comedy in the spirit of early Almodóvar films. When the devout Carmen is passed over for leadership of her local religious guild in southern Spain in favor of a man, her initial despair turns into determination to turn the tables on this sexist situation.
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BOYS CRY directed by Damiano D’Innocenzo[/caption]
BOYS CRY (Italy, directed by Damiano D’Innocenzo & Fabio D’Innocenzo). Two teenage boys living in the suburbs of Rome fall into service of the local mafia, but their loss of innocence takes them to unexpected places. Winner of the prestigious Nastro d’Argento (Silver Ribbon), Italy’s National Syndicate of Film Journalists Award, for Best First Feature Film of the Year.
Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival unveiled award winners this past weekend and Argentine Diego Lerman’s drama A Sort of Family (Una especie de familia) won the top award – the Grand Jury Prize for Best Film. The film is currently nominated for 8 Argentinian Academy Awards (Premios Sur), including Best Picture and Best Director.
The Festival’s Audience Award for Best Feature went to the Argentina-Spain co-production The Last Suit (El último traje), written and directed by Argentine Pablo Solarz. The film is being released theatrically in the US by Outsider Pictures on March 23rd. “The Driver is Red”, a true crime documentary set in Argentina in 1960, directed by American filmmaker Randall Christopher, won the Audience Award for Best Short Film.
The $10,000 Knight Documentary Achievement Award, voted on by the public, was split equally between three US films in a race that Festival Director Jaie Laplante said was simply “too close to call”. The winning films included two films that world premiered at the Festival: When The Beat Drops, directed by celebrity choreographer and first time filmmaker Jamal Sims; and Amigo Skate, Cuba, directed by first-time feature director Vanesa Wilkey-Escobar. The films share the cash award and title with a third film, Liyana (a co-production with Swaziland), directed by Aaron Kopp and Amanda Kopp.
Mateo Gil won the Knight Competition Best Director award and $5,000 cash for The Laws of Thermodynamics (Las leyes de la termodinámica), which world premiered at the Festival on the same day Netflix announced that it had acquired worldwide SVOD rights to the title. Rodrigo Sorogoyen, recent winner of Spain’s Goya (Academy Award) for Best Short Film with “Mother” (“Madre”), repeated that feat at Miami Film Festival as Grand Jury Winner of the IMDbPro Short Film Competition.
The acclaimed Venezuelan feature La familia written and directed by Gustavo Rondón Córdova, won two awards: the $10,000 HBO Ibero-American Feature Film Award, and the Rene Rodriguez Critics Award.
The $10,000 Jordan Ressler Screenwriting Award for best first-produced screenplay in the Festival went to France’s Xavier Legrand, for the film Custody (Jusqu’à la garde). The film will be released theatrically in the US by Kino Lorber. The $5,000 Knight Competition Best Performance Award went to Cesar Troncoso from Uruguay’s Another Story of the World (Otra historia del mundo).
The Festival’s inaugural $10,000 Knight Made in MIA Competition, sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, open to any film – short or feature, documentary or narrative – in the Festival’s Official Selection that features a qualitatively/quantitatively substantial portion of its content (story, setting and actual filming location) in South Florida, from West Palm Beach to the Florida Keys, and that most universally demonstrates a common ground of pride, emotion, and faith for the South Florida community, went to David Abel’s Gladesmen: The Last of the Sawgrass Cowboys.
The $5,000 Zeno Mountain Award is a $5,000 cash prize established at Miami Film Festival’s 2017 edition and funded by Miami-based Fringe Partners, seeking to reward a film of any length or genre in the Festival’s Official Selection which helps break down barriers to our understanding of people living with disabilities, went to the short documentary about the legacy of a Miami Beach high school educator whose incredible achievements were undaunted by his affliction with multiple sclerosis: “Carry That Weight: A Rockumentary” by Brian J. Leitten.
The Jordan Ressler Screenwriting Award, sponsored by the family of the late Jordan Alexander Ressler, an aspiring screenwriter and Cornell film studies graduate who died in a tragic hiking accident at the age of 23, before realizing his dream, was presented by Ressler family member Gary Ressler, after the winner was unveiled by jury members, filmmaker Matthew Porterfield (Sollers Point), international programmer Jane Schoettle, and Miami-based writer, actor and storyteller Rudi Goblen. The Jordan Ressler jury also elected to give an Honorable Mention for Audacity of Vision to Georgian screenwriter and filmmaker Ana Urushadze for her debut Scary Mother.
Earlier in the week, the Festival’s CinemaSlam competition for work of undergraduate and graduate students in Miami/South Florida film schools was unveiled by jury members, artist Omilani Alarcón and filmmaker Michael Arcos, speaking on behalf of fellow jury member and filmmaker Jessica Kavana Dornbusch. This year’s winning film was “Rene de Dios and the South Beach Shark Club” by Miami Dade College student Robert Requejo Ramos.
A Drowning Man[/caption]
Miami Film Festival and IMDbPro today unveiled 25 finalists in the Festival’s IMDbPro Short Film Competition. The Short Film Competition Grand Jury will include IMDb’s Founder and CEO Col Needham, and the winning filmmaker will receive a $2,500 cash prize.
The Miami Film Festival, which celebrates its 35th anniversary edition this year, will take place March 9 to 18, 2018 at venues across Miami.
“We congratulate the finalists of the IMDbPro Short Film Competition and are pleased that all submissions were exclusively received and processed via IMDbPro’s Withoutabox service, which connects filmmakers and film festivals,” said Matt Kumin, Head of IMDbPro. “This short film competition is one of the many ways we help filmmakers get discovered by a global audience and advance their careers.”
Highlights among the 25 finalists of the Festival’s 2018 IMDbPro Short Film Competition include:
Adrián Cárdenas, a Cuban-American writer/director from Miami and former Major League
baseball player for the Chicago Cubs, will present his NYU Tisch School of the Arts master’s
thesis film, “Canoe Poems.”
Six new animated shorts will compete from the National Film Board of Canada, this
category’s defending champion. The 2017 Miami Film Festival’s Best Short-winning film was
the NFB’s “The Head Vanishes,” by Franck Dion.
Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei and Oscar-nominee Minnie Driver star in Jocelyn Stamat’s
unusual sci-fi/horror entry, “Laboratory Conditions.”
Three-time and currently Oscar-nominated makeup artist Kazuhiro Tsuji’s work in the
physical transformation of 2018 Oscar nominee Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour is profiled in “The
Human Face.”
Palestinian filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel returns to the competition for a third consecutive time
with the BAFTA-nominated “A Drowning Man,” first presented as a Palme d’Or candidate the
2017 Cannes Film Festival.
Miami-born Michael Arcos will present his eclectic “This My Favorite Mural” and Miami-
educated Sara Werner will present “The Things They Left Behind,” based on a story by
Stephen King.
The complete list of 25 films in the Festival’s IMDbPro Short Film Competition are:
BROKEN HILL (Australia, 2017), directed by Peter Drew.
THE CANNONBALL WOMAN (Canada, France, Switzerland, 2017), directed by Albertine Zullo, David Toutevoix.
CANOE POEMS (USA, 2017), directed by Adrián Cárdenas.
DEYZANGEROO (Canada, 2017), directed by Ehsan Gharib.
A DROWNING MAN (Denmark, Greece, UK 2017), directed by Mahdi Fleifel.
EMMY (Canada, 2018), directed by Hannah Cheesman.
THE FISHERMAN (Cuba, 2017), directed by Ana A. Alpizar.
(FOOL TIME) JOB (France, 2017), directed by Gilles Cuvelier.
THE FULL STORY (UK, 2017), directed by Daisy Jacobs.
HOLY HILL (Dominican Republic, 2017), directed by Rodney Llaverias.
THE HUMAN FACE (USA, 2017), directed by Aline Pimentel.
LABORATORY CONDITIONS (USA, 2017), directed by Jocelyn Stamat.
LOS COMANDOS (USA, 2017), directed by Joshua Bennett, Juliana Schatz.
MANIVALD (Canada, Croatia, Estonia 2017), directed by Chintis Lundgren.
MI DULCINEA (Cuba, 2017), directed by Max Barbakow.
MOTHER (Spain, 2017), directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen.
MY TREASURE (El Salvador, 2017), directed by Michael Flores.
MY YIDDISH PAPI (Canada, 2017), directed by Éléonore Goldberg.
NO TRAFFIC NO MORE (Canada, 2017), directed by Julie Roy
SKIN FOR SKIN (Canada, 2017), directed by Kevin D. A. Kurytnik, Carol Beecher.
THE TESLA WORLD LIGHT (Canada, 2017), directed by Matthew Rankin.
THE THINGS THEY LEFT BEHIND (USA, 2017), directed by Sara Werner.
THIS MY FAVORITE MURAL (USA, Honduras, Costa Rica, 2017), directed by Michael Arcos.
TO GO (Uruguay, 2018), directed by Ilan Rosenfeld.
25. UNFINISHED, 2017 (MIXED MEDIA) (USA, 2018), directed by Rafael Salazar Moreno.