The Kids in Exile's first point -- the festival's lack of attention to Floridian talent -- seems a bit bizarre. After all the intention of the Miami Film Festival has never been to showcase back-yard talent, particularly since that role has been ably filled by the Alliance Cinema, which stages its own locals-oriented festival, in addition to providing resources for aspiring auteurs. One hardly expects the New York Film Festival to devote itself to New York filmmakers, or Sundance to give itself over to Utah talent. Perhaps a more suitable home for the Kids in Exile would be the Cuban Film Festival, an exile-only forum in everything but name. Inaugurated this past year under the auspices of the University of Miami, the Cuban Film Festival's founders certainly have no qualms about quality issues, happily displaying all manner of dreck on projected video. Their only litmus test for inclusion appears to be a political one: denounce Fidel with the appropriate level of venom and you're in.
As for the Kids in Exile's second thrust -- demanding Chediak's removal from the very festival he founded back in 1983 on the grounds that "he has no formal training in film and has no significant work in the field" -- it's downright ludicrous. In fact it's hard to imagine another individual more suited to chairing the Miami Film Festival than Chediak, a man who has spent the past three decades tirelessly championing truly exciting cinema, often at great personal expense. Anyone who caught Miami's first peek at François Truffaut's Day for Night back in 1973 at Chediak's Cinematheque theater, might also have spied him sweeping up the joint afterward; it was hardly a glamorous calling. Rainer Werner Fassbinder's pictures may have played to near-empty houses in the late 1970s, putting the Cinematheque in ominous financial straits, but Chediak never stopped booking them. Money wasn't the issue. Instead, it was, as the festival's slogan now attests, "for the love of film."
So what of Water, Mud & Factories? Despite repeated pleas the Kids in Exile refused to allow Kulchur to view their movie. Consequently we'll have to rely on Herald film critic Rene Rodriguez, who wrote, "Chediak would have been nuts to include Water, Mud & Factories in the festival. The movie is a hollow exercise in nostalgia that speaks to very specific viewers -- and tells them only what they want to hear.... Take away the Spanglish dialogue, the references to arroz con pollo and café con leche and the loving abuelita who demands the grandkids speak Spanish at the dinner table, and what you're left with is a dull, technically proficient but weakly written film made by people who have seen a lot of movies but have nothing new to say themselves." Shortly after Rodriguez's assessment was published, the Kids in Exile diligently repossessed almost every copy of the tape previously sent out for review. Coincidence? Or damage control?
Kulchur is however, familiar with the Kids in Exile's previous oeuvre -- painfully so. Their earlier "documentaries," such as Adios, Patria, are so blatantly one-sided, so extreme in their right-wing bias, they stand simply as a reverse mirror image of any state propaganda you might find on Cuban television back in Havana. It's hardly surprising then, that while other independent filmmakers struggle to raise funds for their pictures, the Kids in Exile have been extensively bankrolled by several of el exilio's financial heavyweights, including the liquor giant Bacardi-Martini U.S.A., Sedano's supermarkets, and Zubi Advertising Services (whose Michelle Zubizarreta apparently joined the Kids in Exile sometime after her family's ad agency cut the group a check), all of whose aging owners appear thrilled to finally find members of a younger generation willing to carry on la causa while wearing the same set of blinders.
Even PBS television affiliate WPBT (Channel 2) has signed on, ponying up thousands of dollars to air Adios, Patria, apparently unconcerned with the program's laughable sense of objectivity, as long as it keeps the phones ringing from like-minded viejos during pledge drives. Then again considering WPBT's similar use of motivational speakers and self-help gurus on loan from infomercials, the station obviously isn't too concerned about to whom it gives the PBS stamp of credibility.
What makes this entire affair more than just another case of artistic sour grapes, is its chilling reminder of the precarious position arts organizations hold in Miami. The Cuban-exile community still exerts a hold of de facto censorship over local cultural efforts, and where threats of outright violence aren't enough to deter dissenters, financial blackmail comes into play. As Michael Spring, executive director of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, told the New York Times: "The psychological and real wounds of Cuban exiles here in Miami are still so fresh that artistic decision-making takes that into account.... You're certainly not going to program against the grain as a practical matter."
In contrast the Miami Film Festival remains one of the few groups not cowed by these pressures. With the festival now sponsored by Florida International University, however, it's a situation many in el exilio (using the Kids in Exile as a stalking horse) are clearly hoping to change, banking on FIU officials to be more susceptible to bully tactics than Chediak.
Accordingly, this year's festival hot ticket is Life Is to Whistle, a new existentialist drama out of Cuba proper, courtesy of director Fernando Perez. Screening at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 26, Life has been picking up rave reviews, winning the Audience Award at Sundance. Another must-see is To Be or Not to Be Eduardo, a portrait of alternative sexuality in Havana courtesy of director Javier Echevarria. Miami-Dade Community College's Alejandro Rios presents a free screening of To Be at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 19, at MDCC's downtown campus. Taken together the two films stand as further proof that the arts in Cuba continue to evolve in fascinating ways, despite the best efforts of both the Cuban government and our own homegrown cultural commissars.
A number of festival events take place away from the plush aisles of the Gusman this year, most notably Commedia all'italiana, a retrospective look at the first wave of postwar Italian comedies. Screening at AMC CocoWalk, the series' most notable feature is Mario Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street, a truly sublime heist flick from 1958. Although skillfully remade in America several years ago as Palookaville, there's still no substitute for the original's soul-warming tale of slackers looking for the easy way out.
More John Ford than you can shake a stick at unspools during Four x Ford, a salute to the king of Western Americana, held at AMC Fashion Island. Although the opportunity to catch The Searchers on the big screen is the obvious attraction, pencil in as well a trip to see Directed by John Ford, Peter Bogdanovich's stirring documentary on the legendary figure. Arrive on time: Bogdanovich himself introduces his work, and aside from being a notable scholar, he's also one of the cinema's most skilled raconteurs.
A cynic might sum up the true spirit of last Saturday's Bob Marley "One Love" Caribbean Music Festival by pointing to the site's house-size inflatable bottle of Red Stripe and its attendant banner: "One Love, One Beer." Certainly the overall vibe was a bit muddled, with as many people in the assembled crowd taking their aesthetic cues from Abercrombie & Fitch as from Jah.
The onstage appearance of Lauryn Hill, briefly introducing a song by Bob Marley's mother Cedella, set off the day's first real charge of excitement (an energy spike matched only by the boos from the audience when headliners Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers wrapped up the concert near 2:00 a.m., and it became clear that Hill's much-rumored performance wasn't going to happen). Just as with November's rasin festival (another supposedly roots-centered celebration of folk culture) though, it was a hip-hop set blasted out over the PA that truly set the crowd off.
DJ Khaled hadn't done much to aid any feelings of contemplative peacefulness earlier in the day, killing time by continually screaming his own name over the speakers at ear-splitting volume. When he finally hit upon the mantra of "It's all about DJ Khaled!" a cluster of full-on Rastas seemed ready to head for the DJ booth and personally provide their own corrective lesson on the day's true meaning. Still, it's hard to argue with a mass of wiggling butts, and as Khaled dropped the needle on Juvenile's "Back That Azz Up," the crowd went nuts. It's a bit unclear what songs by DMX or the late Big Pun have to do with Bob Marley, but they did manage to produce the enthusiastic arm-waving response that the Marley clan's own homilies hadn't.
While it may have been an odd introduction for Erykah Badu's subsequent set, it drives home a telling point: If Rastafarianism and the larger world of roots reggae is ever going to attain relevancy in America, it's going to have to do so on hip-hop's terms, and in hip-hop's language. Certainly it's no accident that both Lauryn Hill and Badu have re-energized R&B by following precisely that path, fusing the soul man with the b-boy, and fashioning something entirely new in the process. Prefacing an extended vamp through her "Tyrone," Badu borrowed a page from Mos Def and addressed the crowd: "People always ask me in interviews, Where is hip-hop going? Where is R&B going?' Well, hip-hop and R&B are going wherever we're going." It was as much a declaration of purpose as an answer; apply it to reggae and you've got a mission statement for next year's Bob Marley Festival.
Send your music news, local releases, and general gunk to Brett Sokol at 2800 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33137. Fax to 305-571-7678 or e-mail [email protected]
