“I had four meters of water in my living room. When I came back there there were dead fish in my house.”
The film The world has not been stranger to natural disasters in recent months – as we all know, after seeing the terrible images of Los Angeles Wildfires The engulfed Pacific Palisades and Altadena in January. And Mark Famiglio is no exception.
That scene with floods was what greeted Sarasota Film Festival President last September when he returned to his Siesta Key home after evacuating from Hurricane Helene. In fact, his house was largely inaccessible to repair work, as his driveway was almost washed out in its entirety. As usual all over Florida Gulf Coast, the road nearby was lined with a canyon of refrigerators and cabinets and other household items destroyed by the flood water and was left out by the curb for the city to remove. And then the hurricane met Milton less than two weeks later.
Ask everyone else involved in the Sarasota Film Festival, which mainly pulls from the locals to function as volunteers, and they were probably also affected. Senior programmer Brian Gordon, who only moved to Sarasota four years ago, had his first experience in buying plywood at Home Depot and boarding his house. “I will never forget the experience of Milton’s eye passing over us and it suddenly becomes calm outside,” Gordon said.
Thousands of people over Sarasota and the wider Tampa Bay area are still moving from Helene and Milton. Hundreds of companies have still not opened throughout the region, or may never open again. But just for a moment, Famiglio, a local entrepreneur who got its start in real estate, made seriously considering not holding Sarasota Film Festival 2025. At once he and his team saw the event at the 10-day festival, which started on April 4, was more important than ever.
Can a movie festival help a community recovery from a natural disaster? Sarasota will really try. And depending on the results, it may be a model for how the film community in a city that is ravaged by disaster can help in its recovery.
Glenn who is close to the lead role AFI Fest premiere “The Summer Book” and Maria Schneider Biopic “Being Maria” have already played to sell crowds at the festival, now in the middle of his driving. As usual, the festival started with a party at the pool and its beloved street party is canceled on April 11. In addition, the filmmaker who has made Florida to his canvas with a neon -colored zeal like no one else, Harmony Korine, will receive the Trailblazer award in person.
Although performing arts are up and running, this is the largest urban event in Sarasota since Milton made Landfall over Siesta Key on October 9. “Doing what we normally do is what is most important,” Gordon said. “After something similar, it only has more impact than usual to do what we normally do. I think people want to get out a little more, even more than before because people just want to get back to normal.”
For Gordon, as well as programs for Sundance, Tribeca and PBS’s “POV” after long stints at the San Francisco International Film Festival and Nashville Film Festival, Sarasota is important in a different respect for the special market. “Some of the movies we show will not end up on the big screen again,” he said. Although Sarasota is not a sales festival, it is a place where the audience’s sense of films without distribution can be noted. Added Famiglio, “Some of these filmmakers trust this festival and they need it not only for the network, but just to showcase their art. It’s too important not to do.”
As usual, the festival lineup has several films from Sarasota or the wider Florida Gulf Coast region, including the opening night movie, the documentary “Marcella”, about the legendary evangelist for Italian food in America, Marcella Hazan. She lived in nearby Longboat Key until her death in 2013. But even some films that have nothing to do with Sarasota have taken on a new resonance for this community in recovery, such as the closing night movie “Lovers”, directed by Taylor McFadden, about a group of friends who picked up the pieces after one of the pieces after one of his owns after one of his own.
This festival, like all festival, can be an important way for society around it to see itself. Once again published Sarasotaout.com a Gay guide to the sarasota movie festival. In a state where LGBTQ rights have been consistent during attack (even though they have the third largest LGBTQ population in any state in the United States) this platform may be extremely meaningful, as it was Last year for the documentary “A house is not a disco.”
“I have people who are very close to me – family and close friends – some of the most important people in my entire life, who are struggling with these kinds of issues and confronted with,” Do we have to run from Florida? Can’t we come to Florida? Do we have to leave? Do we move to Canada? “, Famiglio said.” I constantly handle this, almost daily. And I don’t know, we have to do something. And with the film festival, I believe that film as a form of expression is an important way where you can convince and convince people and keep things on the menu without running it into people’s faces. “
Famiglio is about having dialogues. The day after our telephone interview in mid -March, he would have lunch with Governor Ron Desantis and participate in a round table with the governor, who dramatically cut almost all public funding for the Florida 2024 art, including grants for Sararasota Film Festival. You can’t deal with the problem if you don’t participate in conversation, right?
“Honestly, everything that went on when California was thrown with the fire fires, drove us to make this year’s festival even more,” Famiglio said. This is an opportunity to show that film can really be a thing that unites a society. Film can be a catalyst for conversations that must happen. And it can be a much needed escape, a little fun for a society that really needs it.
