Miami Film Festival Announces GEMS 2016 Lineup

As October approaches and cinephiles are craving fresh films from the festival circuit, Miami Film Festival is handing us exactly what we need when we need it. In an announcement today at the Wynwood location of the festival’s official timekeeper, Shinola, Miami Film Festival revealed its lineup for GEMS, the annual four-day fall film fest taking place October 13 through 16.

Over the four-day period, and showing exclusively at Miami Dade College’s Tower Theater, GEMS will screen a slate of features that opens with the Florida premiere of a music documentary on the Rolling Stones. In addition to enjoying a party with music, food, and drinks, audiences can also watch the band tour South America for the first time in more than a decade in The Rolling Stones Olé Olé Olé: A Trip Across Latin America, a film that leads viewers straight to a dramatic final stop in Havana, Cuba.

The South Florida connections don’t stop there for the festival, with multiple features focused on our area enjoying their Sunshine State premiere during GEMS. Antonio Campos’ Christine follows Sarasota reporter Christine Chubbuck, who killed herself on live TV in 1974. Miami native Kelly Reichardt’s adaptation of Maile Meloy’s short stories, Certain Women, is also on the roster. And Jim Jarmusch’s documentary Gimme Danger is another music-centric feature, this one about Miami resident and punk-rock legend Iggy Pop.

In making the announcement, the festival’s executive director and director of programming, Jaie Laplante, said, "These are the movies that matter the most, right now. These are grand visions of our humanity and what is becoming of us. This is cinema that shows us life as novels and television cannot."

The lineup also includes major award-winners such as Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes; and Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman, which scored Best Actor and Best Screenplay at the same fest. Germany’s Oscar submission and Cannes favorite Toni Erdmann, by Maren Ade, is also in the mix, as well as Chile’s submission, Pablo Larraín’s Neruda, which continues the festival’s record of showcasing the talented filmmaker’s work.

Filling out the announced films are Ibero-American box office hits Kiki, Love to Love and Inseparables; Anna Muylaert’s Don’t Call me Son; Johnny Ma’s Old Stone; and Rafi Pitts’ Soy Nero. On top of all of these film choices, GEMS also promises a compilation of designer Juan Gatti’s most iconic and influential credit sequences over four decades in celebration of his being announced the new poster artist.


"I'm particularly excited about our poster artist for 2017, the great Juan Gatti,” Laplante says, describing the photographer and graphic artist who has contributed credit and title sequences for filmmakers such as Pedro Almodóvar, Alex de la Iglesia, and Susan Seidelman. “We've had many fantastic and wonderful poster artists in our history, including Chuck Jones, Javier Mariscal, and Jean-Marc Calvet, and the new poster will certainly be remembered as one of our most passionate and intricate — exactly matching my plans for the 2017 edition."

Tickets for GEMS will go on sale to Miami Film Society members exclusively this Friday, September 16, and to the general public Friday, September 23. Visit miamifilmfestival.com/gems.