As Oscar season winds to a close, the Miami Film Festival (MFF) is back to make sure local audiences experience the best the movies have to offer.
The city’s largest celebration of cinema is coming off a highly successful 2024, with its marquee event, and its awards season showcase, GEMS, screening Oscar nominees like “Sing Sing,” “Black Box Diaries,” “A Real Pain,” and “The Brutalist,” and inviting film world luminaries like Alfonso Cuaron, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, and Tarsem Singh.
It’s not stopping there. MFF plans to go bigger and better for its 2025 edition, which runs Thursday, April 3 to Sunday, April 13.
(Courtesy Miami Film Festival)
Rachelle Salnave, one of the recipients of the inaugural Louies grant.
Popular Miami venues will return, including the Olympia Theater in downtown Miami, which will host the opening- and closing-night screenings.
“Returning to the Olympia Theater is a full-circle moment for us,” said festival director James Woolley. “This iconic venue, with its stunning architecture and starry sky ceiling, has been a cornerstone of Miami's cultural scene since 1926. Walking into the Olympia feels like stepping into another era, and that sense of grandeur instantly elevates the film festival experience. There’s something special about watching a film in a space with so much history – it adds a whole new layer of meaning. Bringing the Miami Film Festival back here allows us to honor the city’s artistic heritage while giving filmmakers and audiences an unforgettable, one-of-a-kind experience.
The Adrienne Arsht Center will host a spectacular screening of “La La Land” featuring a live orchestra. The 2016 musical, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling as Hollywood hopefuls, earned a record-tying 14 Oscar nominations before infamously losing Best Picture to the Miami-set “Moonlight.” Demand for tickets has been so high that a second show was added after the first sold out.
(Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics)
Miami Film Festival’s 2025 lineup includes the Jacob Elordi drama, "On Swift Horses."
“We're thrilled to have that in the program,” said Woolley. “And I do think it's a great one to highlight the audience, because it's just a very classy event.”
Though the festival lineup was still being finalized at the time of this interview – the program and full line-up will be unveiled March 5 – Woolley was able to tease a few confirmed additions. Fresh from its U.S. premiere at SXSW is the 1950s period drama “On Swift Horses,” with “Euphoria” heartthrob Jacob Elordi and “Twisters” star Daisy Edgar-Jones. Nicolas Cage, a regular of MFF and GEMS lineups, faces down a torrid Western Australia beach town in the thriller “The Surfer.” And speaking of Australia, MFF will also screen the 4K restoration of the 1975 classic “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” directed by the legendary Peter Weir of “Master and Commander” fame.
(Courtesy Miami Film Festival)
A salsa band plays at one of Miami Film Festival’s happy hours. Latin music is a big part of the 2025 lineup, with films on Willy Chirino and more.
Animation fans can check out “Olivia and the Clouds,” an experimental animation from the Dominican Republic. On the documentary front, “Sally” profiles the life of first American woman in space, Dr. Sally Ride. Latin music lovers will enjoy “Chirino,” a documentary on the salsa star Willy Chirino, with the man himself in attendance. Other high-profile guests include “Before Sunrise” star Julie Delpy, who will screen her new film, “Meet the Barbarians.”
(Courtesy AER Management)
Salsa star Willy Chirino is scheduled to attend a documentary about him at the Miami Film Festival.
MFF 25 will be the biggest year yet for local films. In January, MFF announced the inaugural winners of The Louies, an initiative of MFF sponsored by the Lynn & Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation. Six filmmakers will receive a combined $100,000 to create documentaries exploring South Florida’s history, cultural identity and iconic people and places. Two of the films, Rachelle Salnave’s comedy, “Dual Citizen,” about a Haitian-American woman’s effort to claim Haitian citizenship; and Emilio Oscar Alcalde’s “El Sonido de Miami,” which charts the evolution of Latin music in the city, will premiere at the 2025 festival, with the others debuting at future editions.
“When I found out I had won the Louies Grant, my first reaction was a mix of relief, excitement, and gratitude,” said Salnave. “It felt like a validation of the years of hard work and dedication I’ve poured into ‘Dual Citizen.’ This project is deeply personal and knowing that others see its value motivates me to push forward to bring this story to life. It was also a moment of reflection, realizing that this grant brings me one step closer to amplifying an important conversation about identity, family, and connection to Haiti.”
(Courtesy Miami Film Festival)
Miami Film Festival director James Woolley.
“This grant gives us the golden opportunity to use the extraordinary Wolfson Moving Images Archives to complete the post-production of ‘El Sonido de Miami,’” said Alcalde.
MFF will once again spotlight Haitian-American cinema with Monica Sorelle’s film “Know Me,” which will screen at the Little Haiti Cultural Center. Sorrelle’s award-winning profile of gentrification in Little Haiti, “Mountains,” was included in last year’s MFF.
“We're going to have a record year of Miami-made films, documentaries and features, probably the most we've ever had in 42 years,” said Woolley. “I think that's going to be the real talking point of the season, just how strong the Miami lineup is this year.”
IF YOU GO
Miami Film Festival 2025
April 3-13, 2025
Multiple Locations
(Courtesy Miami Film Festival)
Emilio Oscar Alcalde, filmmaker of the documentary, "El Sonido de Miami"