This year's Miami International Film Festival is replete with enough films to blow your independent film loving ass clean off with 100 films from 40 countries including Oscar nominated films, international films, an animated film (for adults!), the requisite local-focus films, and rapper 50 Cent starring as a football star with cancer.
MIFF will also feature 15 documentaries from 10 countries with topics that range from the dying newspaper industry to a Liberian warrior who fought bare-ass in battle. With so many flicks to choose from, we give you five films you should make sure to pencil in to watch at this year's MIFF. Hurry up, tickets are on sale now.
1. Chico & Rita
Pioneering director James Lipscomb's documentary about the 1961 state football championship game between rivals Miami High and Miami Edison unapologetically delves into the stark brutal reality of high school football where young men were forced to carry the burden of winning and losing on their young, impressionable shoulders. Deemed too controversial to air at the time, there are depictions of players getting severely injured in practice but forced back into practice anyway. There are also scenes where the players get an earful from a driven coach about how this game would cement their legacies as winners or losers for the rest of their lives.