Six Local Filmmakers Win New Grant to Tell Miami's Untold Stories

Winners also get access to the expansive Wolfson Archives, and their films will debut at the Miami Film Festival.

January 8, 2025

Image: A camera stands between two a filmmaker and interviewee. A bed is part of a museum exhibition in the background.

Gina Ann Margillo, director of Overtown's Living Legacy is one of six winners of the inaugural Louies. She'll direct Mic Drop: Night Train’s Last Stop, a short film about Night Train host Ted Grossman. Miami Film Festival photo

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The Miami Film Festival (MFF) has announced the inaugural winners of the Louies, a $100,000 grant that will fund film projects about South Florida by Miami-based filmmakers. The award, presented by MFF and sponsored by the Lynn & Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation, also grants select winners access to the Lynn & Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives at Miami Dade College, a repository housing more than 35,000 hours of video and film chronicling Florida's history. Two winners will debut their films at the 2025 Miami Film Festival, with the others showing at future editions of the world-renowned festival.

For its first set of winners, the jury chose to fund projects that tell uniquely Miami stories. The feature-length documentary winner, Margaret Cardillo, was awarded $50,000 for her forthcoming documentary about Jane Chastain, America's first female sportscaster and a staple of Miami's first TV station, WTVJ, in the 1970s. "This documentary will explore why, of all the markets in the country, it was the city of Miami that fostered this pioneering talent," Cardillo said in a statement.

Three winners were awarded $10,000 each to create short documentaries about South Florida. Symone Titania Major's Under the Mango Tree will explore a family's connection to a mango tree in Goulds and its ties to the area's agricultural heritage; Gina Ann Margillo's Mic Drop: Night Train's Last Stop will profile Ted Grossman, host of the long-running Night Train jazz radio show; and Jayme Kaye Gershen's Adult Night: A Super/Hot Wheels Doc is a paean to the beloved South Florida roller rink.

Filmmakers Rachelle Salnave and Emilio Oscar Alcalde were also awarded $10,000 each for their respective films, Dual Citizen, an exploration of Haitian-American identity and the journey to reclaim Haitian citizenship, and El Sonido de Miami, which traces the evolution of the city's Latin music.

Gaspar González, Kareem Tabsch, Matt Deblinger, and Sasha Wortzel were also awarded special jury mentions. Each will receive a stipend and complimentary use of the Wolfson Archives to complete their projects.

Before rejoining Miami New Times as culture editor in 2025, Celia Almeida freelanced for the paper starting in 2016, then came aboard as a staff editor in 2018. Beginning in late 2019, she served as digital editor for Ink. Her writing has been featured in Billboard, Consequence, Paper, and Rolling Stone, among other outlets.

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