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What film festivals are you talking about, Juan?
Well folks, first up is OUTshine Film Festival, which is coming to Fort Lauderdale as well as virtual audiences from Thursday, Oct. 14. through Sunday, Oct. 24. If you’re looking for queer cinema, this fest has plenty: Some highlights I’m especially excited about are the erotic thriller Exquisite Corpse (Cadaver Exquisito) as well as the documentaries Boulevard! A Hollywood Story and No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics.
Miami Film Festival’s GEMS program is also coming up, albeit a little later in the year than usual. It’s taking place on Thursday, Nov. 4through Sunday, Nov. 7, and although the fest’s full lineup hasn’t been announced just yet, two of its features have been: Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero and Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, the latter of which is a new romantic comedy I’ve heard nothing but great things about. The rest of this year’s offerings will be announced tomorrow, so stay tuned!
What are Miami’s local art cinemas showing?
O Cinema South Beach will be opening Dan Savage’s Hump! Film Festival this Friday, Oct. 8, bringing with it an assortment of sex-positive short erotic films to audiences all over. The cinema will also be screening another classic as part of MBC’s Interactive Archive Project with a showing of Pixote for the “Late Cinema Novo” era.
For the rest of this week, the Tower Theater is showcasing two new features by some great filmmakers: Julia Ducournau’s Titane (a much sweeter and funnier film than the critical consensus around it would have you believe) and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy.
You also have one last chance to catch Rashomon at Coral Gables Art Cinema this week on Tuesday, Oct. 5. But that’s not all: There’s the delightful Spanish feature El Planeta for all the mothers and daughters out there, the animated feature The Book of Life for the kids, Federico Fellini’s classic La Dolce Vita, and Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, all of which are being shown in the coming week.
What’s the buzz in the Miami film scene?
Speaking of Gables Cinema, I’d like to wish a warm welcome to its new programming director, April Dobbins. I’m looking forward to seeing how she spices things up over there: Not only is she the first Black woman to hold that title at any movie theater in South Florida, but she’s a close friend and an amazing academic and filmmaker in her own right. This profile about her in the Miami Herald is well worth a read.
Speaking of fresh film announcements, Rene Rodriguez has announced that he will be leaving the Miami Herald after more than three decades and taking over the University of Miami’s Bill Cosford Cinema. Given his expansive experience with film criticism and recent foray into teaching, I can’t wait to see what he’ll do; Rodriguez himself has said that the cinema will be focusing more on student events and curated retrospectives rather than new movies.
What are you supporting this week?
Miami Film Lab recently launched, and based on what they’ve announced so far, stands poised to bring something fresh to the local filmmaking scene. Made by filmmakers for filmmakers, the group is designed to provide crew members of all positions the opportunity to work on homegrown projects while earning the livelihood they deserve.
In terms of programming, they’ll be partnering with Gables Cinema for monthly screenings of movies shot in Miami by local filmmakers and crews as well as sharing a new Miami-made short film on their YouTube channel each week.
What’s your favorite piece you wrote recently?
Since coming out as non-binary, over the last few years I’ve found myself more and more fascinated with all of the things that trans people find identification in. We all have very diverse things that resonate with us, so I wanted to start having conversations about it, hence my new column Trans Talk. It’s a deep dive into the subject, and the first edition saw myself and guest Nadine Smith talk about wrestling (and, yes, wrestling is hella trans). The next one will be a conversation with Caden Mark Gardner about none other than Mad Men’s Don Draper, a trans masc icon if there ever was one — be on the lookout at INTO to find out how and why.
