By Carl Rachelson
Long gone are the turbulent days when Miami looked and behaved like the Wild West. Though Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival will celebrate its 34th year from Friday March 3-12 at a number of screening venues, in year one, the actual sheriff in town was probably Michael Mann. The 1984 Miami Film Festival did not begin with Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs policing the Olympia, but with Louis Malle’s Crackers at the Gusman Cultural Center. Opening night featured Donald Sutherland and Sean Penn trying to rob a San Francisco pawn shop. Surely, Miami’s inaugural crowd could relate to petty criminality.
Location, location, location. The selections here represent that fortunate intersection that only exists in Miami, crossroads of all of the Americas plus Caribbean, the distinguishing characteristic of the Miami Film Festival. Our placement is unique, not to be underestimated nor misconstrued. Just consider the depictions and stereotypes surrounding Latinos and Spanish speakers, then measure the home-grown Miami sensibility and our local understanding of the deeply developed – of course not always positive – multicultural complexity found here. The films that have been selected reflect our singular particularity. Miami Dade College, the Miami Film Festival, and we who live here know this.
The opening night feature, Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, which stars Richard Gere as a pathetic social snob, includes Steve Buscemi, and is directed by Joseph Cedar who has garnered two Oscar nominations. It also features music by the brilliant Jun Miyake.
These days, downtown parties at the Olympia draw the jewelry, but the Knight Competition features the jewels; $40,000 is at stake. This year’s group contains sixteen candidates including period piece, The History of Love, which features names – Gemma Arterton, Elliot Gould, and Derek Jacobi. Migrant intrigue leads Cargo and The Empty Box. Carlos Lechuga’s Santa & Andres inspects 1983 Cuban politics after decades of psychological discord. Documentaries cover Major Lazer. Hulk Hogan, Xavier Cugat, and Kenny Anderson.
The HBO Ibero American Competition has featured extraordinary films in recent years like Embrace of the Serpent. Compelling bio-dramas like El Inka, the story of tormented boxer Edwin Valero which was banned by the Venezuelan government, fit the profile this time. Woodpeckers from the Dominican Republic, José María Cabral’s prison love story, presents a brilliant sign language twist.
Way back when, Miami Film Festival movies were screened in the Gables at the Arcadia, later known as the Absinthe House, the Cinematheque, and the Beaumont, today’s Bill Cosford Cinema at the U. Celebrated filmmakers like Almodóvar, Babenco, Besson, the Coen Brothers, Cuarón, Demme, Herzog, Kasdan, Verhoeven, and Wenders have been among those gracing the red carpet through the years. Actors like Caine, Banderas, Dafoe, Stallone, Goldblum, Pryce, Peck, Darin, MacLaine, Plummer, Loren, Kristofferson, and Hathaway have participated. Though Terell McCraney and Barry Jenkins would be front and center in any candid examination of the state of contemporary Miami movie merit for their heartbreaking Moonlight, perhaps those young brothers are just too busy on a larger stage these days.
I digress. This year’s lineup is available online with ever-evolving information, trailers and write ups at your thumbtips. However, the old school, 99 page, color printout may work better for some. Increasingly, as events get larger and online curators more ambitious, navigating the websites are no easier than getting help from Aetna, though certainly, the Miami Film Festival does not intend to deceive nor pay its directors seven figures. I digress again. For more, go here: http://2017.miamifilmfestival.com/
