If mega-corporations insist on jamming their brands down our throats, then please let them continue doing it with a culture chaser. Recently, Heineken brought Miami a free Cold War Kids concert and a few months back, Diesel gave us a gratis performance of Santigold and Kid Cudi.
And now, Ford -- yep, that flailing American car company -- has commissioned Borscht filmmakers to a make a zombie flick for their new Fiesta car. (It screens tonight before a free screening of Iron Man 2.)
We caught a sneak preview of the short yesterday. Those with weak stomach be warned: This is more 28 Days Later than car commercial - think insects entering and exiting the most undesirable of um, places. See more photos from the gory shoot here.
"Lombries," written and directed in just three weeks by Lucas Leyva, follows
a Cuban-American grandfather and grandson attempting to flee
post-apocalyptic Miami without getting infected by a mind-controlling
parasite. The story comes from a full-length play Leyva wrote called Gusanos (The Impossibility of Death in the Mind of the Living), which he says no Miami theater company wants to touch.
This isn't just a clever gimmick to sell a car. Thanks to the brilliance
of the Borscht materminds, it's got a message tailor-made
for Miami audiences. (We pinky-swore we wouldn't give it away, but here's a hint: The title is derived from gusano, a slur
against Cubans who fled the island after the communist revolution and lombriz, a slang term for worms.)
Leyva cast an elderly actor named Miguel Gutiérrez, a major screen and
stage actor in Cuba, and Alejandro Rodriguez, a Miami native and Belen
grad who recently graduated from the illustrious Juilliard.
Over the course of the shoot, the Borscht team roughed up the Fiesta
prototype. It was almost blown up, flipped over, sunk into Biscayne
Bay, covered in blood, and filled with insects.
Leyva said he drove the
blood-splattered car around Miami in the days following, and he can't
believe he wasn't hassled by any cops. Evidently, it takes more than violent smears of blood to
arouse suspicion in Miami.
"Lombries" screens tonight at 8 p.m. at the Regal South Beach Cinema 18
(1120 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach). It's one of your few chances to see a
Borscht creation in a megaplex theater. Stay seated after the short
for a free screening of Iron 2.
The film is competing with other Fiesta shorts nationwide so text
"wormz" to 44144 to vote for "Lombries." The Borscht Film Festival
could win a $10,000 cash prize.
