Churchill's Documentary Takes Viewers Back Inside the Historic Little Haiti Venue

For years, Miami has held its collective breath awaiting news of Churchill's Pub's reopening. In recent months, there have been rumors and close calls, and even the reopening of another venue beloved by local bands. It's a story with levels of tension and suspense made for the movies, and filmmakers Matt Deblinger and Nicholas Orris have taken it to the screen.

Churchill's, the duo's 16-minute documentary about the storied Little Haiti music venue, features 27 interviews with former performers and employees shot inside its hallowed halls (and grimy bathrooms).

"This was one of my favorite filmmaking experiences of my life; just to be around the passion everyone feels for what Churchill's meant," Orris tells New Times, which named Churchill's the Best Miami Documentary of 2025.

The filmmakers began collaborating 15 years ago, when they met at a Florida State University film club. In 2023, the codirectors completed Python Huntress, an Emmy Award-winning documentary short about Donna Kalil's nights spent patrolling the Florida Everglades in search of invasive Burmese pythons. Soon thereafter, Deblinger thought of another South Florida subject the duo could tackle.
"I grew up not far from Churchill's," he remembers. "It was always a mysterious place. I'm friends with people who were always telling me stories about playing there."

After receiving a $5,000 grant from Oolite Arts in 2023, the duo got to work. "I had two 'musts' for the film," Orris says. "Can we talk to [original owner] Dave Daniels? And can we shoot inside the building? If we didn't have both of those things, it couldn't be definitive."

Both those missions were accomplished, and with a dedicated crew, Deblinger and Orris interviewed anyone they could inside the shuttered venue during a weekend in August 2023. Among the many figures featured in the film are Otto von Schirach, the Jacuzzi Boys, former head bartender Nick Bowe, and, of course, Daniels.

The only real hold-up in getting willing participants was a stalled Churchill's documentary, Little Haiti Rock City, which raised close to $80,000 on Kickstarter back in 2014, but never released an unfinished or final cut. Director Franco Parente explained the delay to New Times in 2018, saying he went it alone without knowing exactly how documentary filmmaking worked, and that significant life events and getting ghosted by an angel investor also played a role.

"We got a lot of pushback because of that movie," Deblinger says. "There was a lot of distrust. Charlie Pickett stood up for us and explained we weren't looking to take anybody's money. We just wanted to make a movie."

For the record, Parente says he, too, is still making his movie. He tells New Times he's "inching through it on my own as life allows," adding he's "excited with all the talk of Churchill’s reopening and whatnot. It goes to show that the story isn’t over yet. I’ll get there."

Asked about Deblinger and Orris' film, Parente says, "That’s exciting news to me...I notice a lot of familiar faces onscreen, but more interestingly, a long list of folks that I don’t recall ever encountering on the 'production' end of that project in particular. It shows how much the industry has grown in South Florida."


As stipulated by the conditions of their grant, Deblinger and Orris had a five-minute cut to show Oolite in December 2023, two months after their weekend of onsite interviews. They then got to work on the longer 16-minute version, which played at the Miami Film Festival and other local screenings earlier this year.

But the pair says it is not finished toying with many hours of unused footage. "It was always intended as a short," says Deblinger. "[Filmgate executive director] Diliana Alexander advised me to get as much footage as we could. At one point, we were considering making it a series on YouTube. We could still do that."

Even as they think through how they might expand their Churchill's cinematic universe, the duo is already dreaming up its next project. Orris, who is based in Colorado, says he's trying to lure Deblinger to his neck of the woods to make a couple of documentaries: one about the politics of psychedelics in Denver, and another about Boulder band the Dirty Turkeys. Deblinger says he's also marinating on other South Florida documentaries about manatee conservation and Coconut Grove. "We haven't found that project that manifested itself," he says. "We'll keep an open mind and we'll know what that next project is when it calls to us."

There is one thing they know for sure, though: They want to shoot the reopening of Churchill's. The pair originally planned for a reopening to serve as the ending of their documentary. "When we were shooting, they said it was going to open at the end of 2023," says Deblinger. "That never happened. If it does, we'll be there."