Return of the Film Festival

The Culture Edit, March 30th-April 13th

Author

Susan Bannon
March 30, 2025

With Spring Break and Ultra safely behind us, Miamians can now settle in to enjoy the last stretch of our arts season. Whew! 

This Thursday, the 42nd Annual Miami Film Festival kicks off with a screening of Julie Delpy’s new film, Meet the Barbarians (with Delpy in attendance), and continues with screenings all around town for ten days. With over 195 first-look new films, plus conversations with directors and actors, you could spend the whole week going to the movies. It was painful to pick out just a few events for this newsletter, so please check out the full festival calendar here so you don’t miss something you’d love.

Also this week, we have three great local theater productions running, plus the world premiere of Birthright, a new Jonathan Spector play at Miami New Drama, opening on Thursday.

Let’s get planning...

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Ongoing Theater

Zoetic Stage: Fiddler on the Roof - Final Week!

Zoetic Stage presents the Tony Award-winning classic musical Fiddler on the Roof in an innovative new production at the intimate Carnival Studio Theater. Exploring the themes of tradition and family in a changing, sometimes hostile world, Fiddler touches the heart with beloved songs like “Sunrise, Sunset” and “Matchmaker, Matchmaker.” Add in a cast of South Florida’s best actors, including the phenomenal 8-time Carbonell Award-winner Jeni Hacker, and you have a production not to be missed!

Performances through April 6th, Carnival Studio Theater at the Arsht Center, $66-$76

Neighborhood: Downtown Arts & Entertainment District

Gablestage: Summer, 1976

Gablestage presents the Florida premiere of David Auburn’s Summer, 1976, after its twice-extended run on Broadway in 2023. Set at a university during our nation’s centennial, the story follows an unlikely friendship between two women who followed different paths - a rule-breaking artist and a faculty wife - that find they both have growing disquiet about the compromises they had to make.

Performances through April 20th, Gablestage, $40-$50

Neighborhood: Coral Gables

Nearby Eats: Babette, Vinya Table, MIKA | Drinks: Bulla, Sospiro Wine Bar

Actors’ Playhouse: Waitress

Actors’ Playhouse continues its “Iconic Season” with Waitress, a heartwarming Broadway hit that makes its Florida regional premiere. The musical revolves around Jenna, a talented piemaker trapped in a loveless marriage, who finds solace and strength through her extraordinary baking skills. With a soulful score by Sara Bareilles, Waitress is a delectable treat that explores the empowering journey of a woman finding her own recipe for happiness.

Performances through April 20th, Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theater, $65-$100

Neighborhood: Coral Gables

Thursday, April 3rd

Miami Film Festival - Opening Night!

“Meet The Barbarians” opens the 42nd Annual Miami Film Festival.

Our own little slice of Sundance, the Miami Film Festival has been showcasing the work of the world’s best emerging and established filmmakers since 1984. As usual, this year's festival will bring directors and actors to town to present their work and award cash prizes for competition categories. Over 195 films from all over the world have been selected for our viewing pleasure, so take a look at the full calendar and see what you'd like to check out. Tickets for the opening and closing night parties sell like lighting, so you’ll want to book those asap. A special treat this year: the opening and closing screenings will take place in the historic Olympia Theater downtown, which has been mostly dark for years.

Various locations, $15.50 General Screenings, $34 Opening & Closing Screenings, $130 Opening & Closing Parties

Olympia Theater Nearby Eats: Mr. Omakase, Tâm Tâm, NIU Kitchen | Drinks: Lost Boy Dry Goods, Over Under, Margot

Friday, April 4th

An Evening with Colum McCann

Books & Books joins forces with the Miami Book Fair and the Consulate General of Ireland to present An Evening with Colum McCann, internationally bestselling author and recipient of the National Book Award for his novel Let the Great World Spin. McCann will be discussing his new novel, Twist, which follows an Irish journalist drawn into the lives of people he’s profiling on deep sea fiberoptic repair missions.

7pm, Books & Books Coral Gables, $28 (includes book copy)

Neighborhood: Coral Gables

Also on April 4th:

  • A lineup of comedic short films, grouped under the title Sex, Love, and Violence, screens at Silverspot Cinema as part of the Miami Film Festival, at 6:30pm.

Saturday, April 5th

Birthright

Miami New Drama presents Birthright, the world premiere of a new play by renowned playwright Jonathan Spector (whose play Eureka Day was a hit on Broadway this past fall). The play begins in 2006, as a group of young American Jews meet on a Birthright Israel trip, and become fast friends. The next twenty years, right up through the Oct. 7th attack and beyond, tear them apart and bring them together, as they wrestle with the question of how to live as a Jew in America.

7:30pm, Colony Theatre, $47-$77

Neighborhood: Lincoln Road

Nearby Eats: Uchiko, Lucali, Paya | Drinks: Brother’s Keeper, Barceloneta

Also on April 5th:

Sunday, April 6th

Chantae E. Wright: It Wasn’t a Dream, It Was a Flood

Pan American Art Projects presents It Wasn’t a Dream, It Was a Flood, a solo show of new multimedia works by Miami-based artist Chantae E. Wright. Wright’s photographic portraits, layered with acrylic, spray paint, and marker, explore how personal and cultural floods shape who we are and how we navigate the world. Opening alongside this exhibition at PAAP will be Pétits, a group show of small scale works by women artists.

11am-4pm, Pan American Art Projects (Little River), Free

Neighborhood: Little River

Nearby Eats: Ensenada, Sunny’s, Phuc Yea  | Drinks: Bar Kaiju, Magie

Also on April 6th:

Happening NEXT Week:

Because maybe your friends are busy this week. Or you're busy this week. Or this week just seems too soon to pull your act together and make a plan.

Wednesday, April 9th

An Evening with Elaine Pagels

National Book Award-winning scholar Elaine Pagels visits Books & Books to discuss Miracles and Wonder, her new investigation into the life of Jesus. A recipient of Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and MacArthur awards in consecutive years, Pagels has been at the forefront of scholarship on early Christianity for decades, ever since the publication of The Gnostic Gospels in 1979. She will be in conversation with Pastor Laurie Hafner of the Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ.

7pm, Books & Books Coral Gables, $30 (includes copy of Miracles and Wonder)

Neighborhood: Coral Gables

Also on April 9th:

Thursday, April 10th

Miami Film Festival: Actor Jason Isaacs

The second week of the Miami Film Festival is absolutely packed with screenings and events (you can check out the full calendar here), making it hard to single one thing out. But with White Lotus-mania sweeping the country, I decided on this awards presentation for actor Jason Isaacs, who plays white-collar criminal and dysfunctional dad Tim Ratliff on that show. Isaacs, whose other credits include memorable villains Lucius Malfoy from Harry Potter and the evil British commander in The Patriot, will be presented with MFF’s Precious Gem Award and then join a live recording of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast.

7:30pm, Chapman Center at MDC Wolfson, $20

Neighborhood: Downtown

Nearby Eats: ViceVersa, Tâm Tâm, Mr. Omakase | Drinks: OverUnder, Margot

Also on April 10th:

Friday, April 11th

Arturo Sandoval at Knight

The Arsht Center is proud to present Cuban jazz legend Arturo Sandoval, live at Knight Concert Hall for one night only. A famed collaborator with Dizzy Gillespie, Sandoval has performed with music icons from Frank Sinatra to Alicia Keys, and has won 10 Grammy awards, 6 Billboard Music awards, and an Emmy for his score for the HBO movie about his life, For Love or Country, starring Andy Garcia.

8pm, Knight Concert Hall at Arsht Center, $40-$130

Neighborhood: Downtown Arts & Entertainment District

Also on April 11th:

  • Books & Books welcomes author Katie Kitamura to discuss Audition, her “exhilarating, destabilizing, Möbius-strip of a novel,” at 7pm.

  • Seraphic Fire presents Angels Behind the Walls, an evening of Baroque vocal music, at Church of the Little Flower, at 8pm.

Saturday, April 12th

Florida Grand Opera: Carmen - Gala Opening Night

Florida Grand Opera closes out its 2024-25 season with Bizet’s Carmen, in a new imagining of the story directed by Maria Cordero. Set in 1937, Cordero’s version finds Carmen leading a band of freedom fighters in Franco’s Spain. To be honest, I’ve never been a fan of the Carmen story, which is just straight-up femicide immortalized as a “crime of passion,” but Bizet’s undeniably gorgeous score, packed with famous arias like “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle (Habanera),” carries the day. And who knows? Maybe in Cordero’s version, she comes out on top. Sung in French, with English and Spanish projected subtitles.

7pm, Ziff Ballet Opera House at Arsht, $27-$260

Neighborhood: Downtown Arts & Entertainment District

Nearby Eats (suitable for your ballgown): Klaw, Casadonna, Brasserie Laurel | Drinks: ViceVersa, Klaw rooftop

Also on April 12th:

  • The Miami Film Festival hosts Yellowjackets actress Melanie Lynskey for a conversation about her career and presentation of her Precious Gem Award, at MDC’s Chapman Center at 1pm.

  • The Miami Film Festival presents a closing night screening of On Swift Horses, a film about queer love and the American West that made a splash at the Toronto Film Fest this year, at the historic Olympia Theater, with actor Diego Calva in attendance, at 7pm.

  • New World Symphony welcomes “breakout star” conductor Dalia Stasevska for an evening of Sibelius, at New World Center at 7:30pm.

  • Dance NOW! Miami presents an encore performance of their new contemporary ballet, Blue Pencil, exploring life under Portugal’s Salzar dictatorship, at Sanctuary of the Arts, at 8pm.

Sunday, April 13th

Miami Film Festival: The Wedding Banquet

The final screening of the 42nd Annual Miami Film Festival, The Wedding Banquet is a joyful comedy of errors from American director Andrew Ahn. The plot follows a planned marriage of convenience between the gay scion of a wealthy Korean family who needs a green card and a financially strapped lesbian who needs to pay for IVF. Their elopement is derailed by his skeptical grandmother, who flies in from Korea demanding an all-out wedding extravaganza.

3:30pm, O Cinema, $18

Neighborhood: South Beach

Also on April 13th:

  • “Breakout star” conductor Dalia Stasevska joins the New World Symphony for a second performance of A Sibelius Journey, at New World Center at 2pm.

Planning Ahead:

Miami's most anticipated events sell out and those new restaurants you want to try book up. Here are a couple of upcoming events to get on your calendar now…

Tuesday, April 29th

Wilco at the Fillmore

Since forming in 1994, Wilco has run the gamut from alternative to country, continuing to put out new music the entire time. Their latest album, 2023’s Cousin, found them returning to their experimental roots, with a lot of comparisons to their 2001 breakout album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The band’s current world tour will bring them to the Fillmore Miami Beach for one night only. Tickets are selling out, but if you snag one, you can request a song on their concert page.

8pm, The Fillmore Miami Beach, $64-$300

Neighborhood: Lincoln Road

May 2nd-3rd

The Cleveland Orchestra: Elgar and Holst

Considered by many to be the finest symphony orchestra in the country, The Cleveland Orchestra finishes out its Miami residency with a blockbuster performance under the baton of “The Flying Maestro” Daniel Harding. First on the program is Elgar’s sublime song cycle Sea Pictures, featuring the velvety contralto of opera star Avery Amereau. Then, the CO tackles Holst’s emotional masterpiece The Planets - from the bellicose dissonance of “Mars, the Bringer of War” to the electrifying “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity.”

8pm Friday and Saturday, Knight Concert Hall at Arsht, $45-$189

Neighborhood: Downtown Arts & Entertainment District

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