Miami Film Festival to Open With ‘Pain and Glory,’ Close With ‘Parasite’

By Dave McNary

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The Miami Gems Film Festival has selected Pedro Almodovar’s semi-autobiographical drama “Pain and Glory,” starring Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz, as its opening night title on Oct. 10 at the Tower Theater. The annual confab will close with Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Parasite,” a black comedy from Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho.

The festival also set Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles’ “The Two Popes,” starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, as the centerpiece film.

Spotlight screenings at the festival will include Kore-eda Hirokazu’s French-language “The Truth,” a tribute to the actress Catherine Deneuve; as well as the Alma Har’el-directed “Honey Boy, directed by Alma Har’el, written by and starring Shia LaBeouf, based on his own experiences as a child actor and early adult life coping with his divorced father’s mental health issues. Also on deck is an adaptation of the book “Motherless Brooklyn,” which was written, directed and stars Edward Norton.

The festival also will screen Alan Berliner’s “Letter to the Editor,” an ode to the free press as represented by personal archives of photographs culled from The New York Times over a 40-year period. The festival is dedicating its screening of the film to Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown, who recently received a George Polk Award for her 2018 series of articles, “Perversion of Justice,” on the Jeffrey Epstein case.