BEST FILM FESTIVAL

BEST FILM FESTIVALCinema VortexIf the goal of a film festival should be to bring high-quality pictures to town -- worthy movies that would otherwise never hit Miami -- then Cinema Vortex deserves its stellar reputation. The fest's history traces back to the defunct Alliance Cinema in Miami Beach, but during more recent years, co-curators Baron Sherer and Kevin Wynn have lighted up many of the area's more distinctive venues -- from the University of Miami's Cosford Cinema to the Miami Shores Performing Arts Theater to the Wolfsonian Museum -- as they continue to unspool the offbeat, the unjustly ignored, the classics that simply demand to be seen on the big screen. Fifties noir such as On Dangerous Ground, French New Wave works from Jean-Luc Godard, American New Wave responses such as Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and The Outfit, as well as a retrospective of reels by Hollywood's master of melodrama, Douglas Sirk: All have graced their schedule. Some of their programming choices may challenge, but in a world where the marketplace triumphs all too often over the pure love of movies, Cinema Vortex is a program that should be held over.