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Day 8: A big, long day for shorts…even more directors breeze
into South Beach…Andy Garcia brings
250 family and friends to the Gusman
Center for City Island and his Ocean Drive bash is the night’s
hottest ticket in town…
In the film world, it’s all about who you know and who knows
you, so never miss a chance to mingle. There wasn’t an empty seat at the Eastman Kodak-sponsored luncheon for
filmmakers, Encuentros program participants and industry execs at Novecento’s Lincoln Road outpost, where
they imbibed the best of Italy over new business. The REEL Education Seminar “Pitching
in the Big Leagues” offered new and veteran filmmakers a chance to polish
their story-script-TV-show-idea pitching skills (in 20 seconds or less!) to a
slate of honchos who make dreams come true: Carlos Carreras of Paradigm
Talent, Michael Dagnery of MTV Latin America, Samantha Horley of The Salt.
Company, and Nick Spicer of XYZ Films. And the Festival’s final
Happy Hour gathering, sponsored by Poder 360º magazine, the National Resources Defense Council and the Americas Business Council at
the Royal Palm Hotel attracted dozens of directors, producers, jurors, special
guests, seminar participants and assorted industry execs.
The long and “short” of it: Friday afternoon was heaven for
short film fanatics, with back-to-back screenings of the 13 offerings of Shorts Competitions I and II at Regal Cinemas South Beach, including appearances by Hipster
Job directors Thomas de Napoli
and Jack Tomas; Summer Runners producer Agustina Chiarino; and, Nor a
Trot, or a Canter director Helvécio
Marins, Jr. On the features front, a few more filmmakers arrived in town to
promote their films: brothers-in-arms Josh
and Benny Safdie for their
out-of-competition, ode-to-fatherhood Daddy Longlegs; Pedro Gonzaález-Rubio for the Mexican father-and-son love story To
the Sea (Alamar), a selection of the Ibero-American Competition; Henrique
Goldman for the Cinema 360º
non-competition selection of the British/Brazilian mistaken-identity terrorist
drama Jean Charles; and producer Loris
Omedes for director Manuel Huerga’s
Son
& Moon (Diario de un astronauta), a selection of the DOX Competition and Encuentros
program success story.
All in the family: Oscar nominee (The Godfather: Part III),
Emmy nominee (For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story) and all-around
local-boy-made-good Andy Garcia, who
attended FIU and Miami Dade College and worked as an
entry-level staffer for the very first MIFF 27 years ago while he struggled to
get acting jobs (including episodes of ¿Que pasa, U.S.A? and Archie
Bunker’s Place), brought his latest effort, the family drama City
Island, co-starring Golden Globe and Emmy winner Julianna Margulies (ER, The Good Wife), to the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts
for a sold-out screening—thanks, in part, to the 250-plus members of his local extended
family and many friends who bought tickets! The night was a family affair in
more ways than one: Real-life daughter and budding actress Dominik joined Dad in the family business in City Island, playing his
college dropout-turned-stripper offspring. For the Red Carpet (which moved
inside the Gusman, due to rain), Proud Papa paraded the rest of la familia in front of the media
throngs, including younger daughter Alessandra
and el chiquito Andrés, Jr., and
shared the spotlight with director Raymond
De Felitta. A longtime Friend of MIFF, Garcia stopped by last year with Cachao:
Uno Más and in recent years debuted Modigliani and The
Lost City for Miami audiences. Sure to be a MIFF 2011 selection: The
recently wrapped, filmed-in-Miami urban drama Magic City Memoirs,
produced by Andy and starring Dominik.
Post-screening, the party proceeded to Garcia’s VIP-only City
Island bash, hosted by Ocean Drive magazine and sponsored
by Barefoot Wine & Bubbly, DonQ Rum and Stella Artois. Newly minted Ocean
Drive editor-in-chief (and longtime nightlife aficionado) Suzy Buckley, publisher Courtland Lantaff, and most of the
part-time Key Biscayner’s 250 family and friends packed into the VIP section of
the elite Conrad Hotel on Brickell
Avenue for the fête.
That’s a wrap!
by Dana Ballestero, Daily Wrap Editor
VIEW DAILY WRAP Day 9: Saturday, March 13, 2010
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