Day 3 of the Festival kicked off with the theatrical World Premiere of the pilot episode of the upcoming new Starz series, Magic City: The Year of the Fin, 100% shot in Miami and created by Miami-born and raised Mitch Glazer, filled the Colony Theatre to capacity. The Red Carpet mayhem included director Mitch Glazer and cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kelly Lynch, Elena Satine, Dominik García-Lorido, Yul Vazquez and Steven Strait in this latest series to channel nostalgia for a bygone era.
A taste of Brazil: US Premiere of Heleno, with director José Henrique Fonseca and actor/executive producer Rodrigo Santoro in the house, scored big at the Gusman Center! This handsome, passionate biopic, set in 1940s Rio, of the tragic life of one of Brazil’s greatest soccer legends, Heleno de Freitas (Santoro) whose violent temper both on and off the field led to his decline in the late fifties. Shot in luminous black & white, Fonseca’s latest feature evokes Heleno’s glory days when he moved on the pitch with perfect grace, oozing with eloquence and animal magnetism with the ladies (such as the alluring nightclub singer played by Angie Cepeda) to his lonely end in a sanatorium due to untreated syphilis at age 39.
Spotlight on Québec: Another full house at Regal South Beach Cinemas for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee, Monsieur Lazhar, with director Philippe Falardeau in attendance, whose latest feature about an Algerian teacher willing to carry the weight of a disturbing incident in order to secure his pupils’ future, thoroughly captivated audience emotions.
At the Tower Theater: British maverick director Andrea Arnold fresh from her drive from Austin to Miami (as she is currently scouting locations for an upcoming road movie to be shot in the US) wooed the audience with her unique book to screen adaption Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.