The spirit of Alfred Hitchcock hovered in Miami over the audience at the Gusman Premiere screening of THE PAGE TURNER, a hold-your-breather suspenser by France’s Denis Dercourt in the grand tradition of the Master of Suspense. A capacity crowd sat enthralled with the twists and turns of the plot as a young woman plots revenge on the callous musician who years before extinguished her chances for musical greatness.

The audience’s fascination with the sinister was also the hallmark of SATANAS, the world premiere screening by Colombian debut director Andi Baiz (one of three films in the Festival’s salute to Colombian cinema this week). Based on a true story about a spree killing, the film held its sold-out audience in the palm of its hand, making for a sometimes exhilarating, sometimes unnerving ride with a filmmaker of great promise.

But if there was one theme to Sunday’s array of programs (and with 23 separate films screening just today, finding a unifying theme is a bit of a conceit) it was cinema’s remarkable ability to capture the human condition and create a connection that resonates with the audience. Whether it was Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen’s moral dilemma in Susanne Bier’s Oscar-nominated film AFTER THE WEDDING, the Holocaust survivors celebrating their remarkable stories in Tali Shemesh’s THE CEMETERY CLUB, the incarcerated prisoners finding release and hope through a song competition in Carles Bosch’s SEPTEMBERS, the young adults groping for individuality on the road to adulthood in Alexis Dos Santos’ GLUE, the son growing up too fast as he tries to protect his mentally fragile mother from the scorn of their community in Dror Shaul’s SWEET MUD, or the romantic who finds unexpected love in all the wrong places in Amir Chamdin and Erik Eger’s GOD WILLING, the full array of human foibles, aspirations and triumphs were on generous display for the audiences willing to take the journey with these characters.

The artists who brought their individual voices to tell these and all the remarkable stories that make up the 100 plus films in this year’s Festival program took a breather from the relentless cycle of press junkets, promotion pushes, question-and-answer sessions and full-press schmoozing, to simply relax at the annual Filmmakers Party Celebration at the Shore Club Sand Bar this evening. It was the rare moment to just hang out, meet fellow filmmakers from all over the world, and take in the beautiful breezes and nearly-full moon spectacle of South Beach at night.
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