Day 7: More, more, more! More REEL Education Seminars, more screenings, more directors in town, more networking and…an Oscar contender comes home to show off her latest feature…

Nothing like kick-starting the day with a networking opportunity at a REEL Education Seminar, and today offered two: “Solving the Indie Production Puzzle,” with Alexis Garcia of William Morris Endeavor, film financier Peter Graham, Rodrigo Guerrero Rojas of Dynamo Capital, producer of Undertow (Contracorriente) and high-powered entertainment attorney Susan Bodine of Los Angeles’ Cowan DeBaets; and, “Traditional Distribution: Here to Stay?” offering a chance to hear the insights of Arianna Bocco of IFC Films; Jason Resnick, consultant formerly with Focus Features; Ray Strache of Fox Searchlight and our own Susan Wrubel, an international film consultant.    

New in town to promote their films: Argentine director Ezequiel Acuña for the friendship dramedy Sightseeing (Excursiones), a selection in the Ibero-American Competition; directorial duo Gerardo Muyshondt and Carlos Moreno for One, the Story of a Goal (Uno, la historia de un gol), the fascinating look at historic qualification and participation of El Salvador’s national football team in the World Cup, a DOX Competition feature; and Spain’s rising star, Mar Coll, winner of the 2010 Goya for Best New Director, who brought her feature directorial debut about a patrician Catalan family sent reeling after a patriarch’s death, Three Days with the Family (Tres dies amb la familia), another Ibero-American Competition feature.

Tower Power: Miami Dade College’s Tower Theater was packed all night long, first with the winners of the festival’s Florida Focus Competition ceremony (a complete list will be shown on Day 9’s Daily Wrap, along with the results of Awards Night). Then, the world-famous Vanity Fair photographer and documentary filmmaker (who owns a house here!), Bruce Weber, and his longtime partner Nan Bush, satisfied the crowd with his love letter to Miami, the short film Liberty City is Like Paris to Me. And capping the night, director David Orth hosted what could only be the made-in-Miami debut of his documentary about our own Latin-reggae-funk-and-hip-hop band, Spam Allstars: Fuácata! Being Thursday night, the party, of course, proceeded to the band’s regularly scheduling weekly outing at the Little Havana hotspot Hoy Como Ayer. 

Gusman Gala: Who knew indie darling and two-time Oscar nominee Catherine Keener was born and raised in Hialeah? Keener (Capote, Being John Malkovich) came home (got a proclamation signed by Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina declaring March 11 “Catherine Keener Day,” too!) and brought her longtime favorite director Nicole Holofcener to the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts to promote their wonderful family dramedy Please Give, co-starring Oliver Platt, Amanda Peet and this month’s Vanity Fair cover girl Rebecca Hall, from Sony Pictures Classics, which, incidentally, gets released in theaters nationwide in April—but MIFF had it first!

Party all the time: MIFF had gatherings scattered all over town for VIPs, filmmakers, celebs, Miami Film Society loyalists and film lovers alike: poolside at the Royal Palm Hotel hosted yet another happy hour bash; downtown’s Italian destination Tre feted Film Society VIPs; filmmakers and industry execs chowed down prime cuts at Chop House on Biscayne; ECCO Pizzateca took care of the after-Gusman crowds while Bar 721 catered to the after-Regal Cinemas crowd on South Beach; and the best bash of the night: the Please Give after-party at the Catalina hotel on Collins.

That’s a wrap!

by Dana Ballestero, Daily Wrap Editor

VIEW DAILY WRAP Day 8: Friday, March 12, 2010