FFCC vice chair Hans Morgenstern recaps his 34th Miami Film Festival experience, highlighting several films without distribution.

Photo: Alberto Tamargo

It’s a bit of a challenge to cover a film festival when you come down with bronchitis while also moving from one location in the city to another. Still, this writer gave it a go. The 34th Miami Film Festival began with opening night, Friday, March 3, which coincided with the day this guy’s movers arrived to the apartment three and half hours late to move the biggest items. Needless to say, I missed the film, Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, starring Richard Gere, who made an appearance alongside the film’s director, Joseph Cedar. Still, there were many highlights to come throughout the week, including a few films without distribution that give reason for this festival to exist.

The next day, may have been the top festival experience for this writer. I volunteered to introduce Stéphanie Di Giusto’s debut feature, The Dancer, about the avant-garde entertainer Loïe Fuller, who made her mark on early 20th century dance via a technique using lights, a flowing dress and poles. The film’s writer/director was present, and she read a statement expressing her inspiration for making this movie, which came from seeing an uncredited photograph of the dancer that captured her in motion creating an effect that made her look like a budding flower…

(Read the rest on Independent Ethos)