The Borscht Corporation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that creates short films and videos in and about the city of Miami, Florida.[1] In addition to hosting a quasi-annual film festival that screens their work,[2] Borscht Corp. provides financial and technical support to its commissioned filmmakers.
Since receiving a challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in 2010,[3] Borscht Corp. has spearheaded productions by untested moviemakers and provided a creative platform for underrepresented (often Latin American) identities in film.
See main article: Borscht Film Festival.
Borscht Corp. hosts a quasi-annual film festival in Miami that functions as a venue to share their work. Named one of the 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World by MovieMaker Magazine,[4] the Borscht Film Festival has simultaneously been hailed as "the weirdest film festival on the planet."[5]
Borscht Corporation holds open calls asking for project ideas from artists from, living in, or inspired by Miami. They seek out both first-time filmmakers from the community and invite guest filmmakers to collaborate.[6]
Twenty short films commissioned by Borscht Corp. have screened at the Sundance Film Festival, with two of them winning Jury Prizes.[7]
In each of the 2016 and 2018 editions of Sundance, Borscht had four projects in competition.[8] [9]
Fourteen Borscht Corp short films have screened at SXSW Film Festival, with three winning jury prizes.
Eight Borscht Corporation short films have screened at AFI Fest, with three winning jury prizes.
Ten Borscht Corp short films have been acquired by The Criterion Collection and are streaming on The Criterion Channel.[10]
As of 2018, Borscht Corp shorts have collectively won fifty-one awards at film festivals.[11]
At least twenty-one Borscht Corp commissions have been selected as Vimeo Staff Picks.[12]
Borscht Corp. productions have seen media coverage from sites, television networks, and publications as varied as Art Papers,[13] CBS News,[14] Interview,[15] The New Yorker[16] and VICE.[17]
Their work has screened at hundreds of venues worldwide, from the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York City[18] to the AFI,[19] Rotterdam International,[20] Sundance,[21] SXSW,[22] Toronto International,[23] Tribeca, and Venice Film Festivals.[24]
In 2015, Borscht Corp. was the subject of two retrospectives: one at the CERN in Geneva, Switzerland as part of the Cineglobe International Film Festival,[25] and another at the Independent Filmmaker Project's Media Center in Brooklyn, New York.[26] The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)[27] will host a Borscht Corp. retrospective in 2016.
Thirteen of Borscht Corp.'s core members and alumni—Bernardo Britto,[28] Lucas Leyva, Jillian Mayer,[29] Terence Nance,[30] Celia Rowlson-Hall,[31] Marnie Ellen Hertzler,[32] Barry Jenkins,[33] Alex Lim Haas,[34] Robin Comisar,[35] Sam Kuhn,[36] Faren Humes,[37] Keisha Rae Witherspoon[38] and Sebastián Silva[39] —have been named to Filmmaker Magazine's annual list of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film.
Three were named to the New York Times' list of 20 Directors to Watch in 2013—Barry Jenkins, Terence Nance, and Sebastián Silva.[40]
Borscht Corp. has received grants from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation,[41] Creative Capital,[18] and Time Warner OneFifty.[42]
Bernardo Britto's animated shorts Places Where We Lived and Yearbook were both awarded the Animated Short Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Fest in 2013 and 2014, respectively. His short film Glove received the Animated Short Grand Jury Award at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival.[43]
Britto's animated short Yearbook received the Short Film Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014.[44]
Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva's (collectively Mayer\Leyva) short video Scenic Jogging was selected by the Guggenheim Museums in New York, Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice to be a part of their YouTube PLAY exhibition in 2010.[45]
Mayer\Leyva's short films Life & Freaky Times of Uncle Luke and #PostModem were finalists for the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 and 2013 Sundance Film Festivals.[46] In 2015, Mayer\Leyva's web series NO SEASONS—produced in association with MTV—received a Webby Award for Outstanding Reality Series.[47]
| 2010 | Day N Night Out | Lucas Leyva | A young man is on the brink of spiritual and sexual self-discovery on the day his city is on the brink of destruction. The short film takes us on an odyssey through Miami on August 22, 1992, the day before Hurricane Andrew completely devastates the city. | Cannes Film Festival | Screenplay by Tarell Alvin McCraney | [48] | |
| 2010 | Velvet | Peter Glanz | Conrad loves Beatrice while Beatrice loves herself. Velvet is the story of their relationship and the crushed velvet jacket that comes between them. | Later adapted to AMC series The Trivial Pursuits of Arthur Banks | [49] | ||
| 2010 | Scenic Jogging | Jillian Mayer | Jillian Mayer goes for a jog. | Guggenheim MuseumYouTube Play Bienniale | [50] | ||
| 2010 | Xemoland | Daniel Cardenas | The story of a seven year-old boy who is led to believe there is a portal to an alternate reality where all his dreams come true. However, the boy quickly realizes that Xemoland is not the place of his dreams, but his nightmares. | Sundance Film Festival 2011 | [51] | ||
| 2011 | Otto and the Electric Eel | Duncan Skiles, Andrew Zuchero | Miami bass legend Otto Von Schirach battles to keep an inter-dimensional creature from ruining his dinner date. | New Orleans Film Festival 2011 | [52] | ||
| 2011 | I Am Your Grandma | Jillian Mayer | An autobiographical video diary log (vlog) that Jillian Mayer records for her unborn grandchildren. | SXSW Film Festival 2012 | [53] | ||
| 2011 | Reinaldo Arenas | Lucas Leyva | The true story of the last few hours in the life of an unintentional immigrant, as told by a dying shark. | Slamdance Film Festival 2012 | SXSW Film Festival 2012 | [54] | |
| 2011 | Chlorophyl | Barry Jenkins | Ana is a young woman struggling to get over the last vestiges of a failed relationship. | International Film Festival Rotterdam | [55] | ||
| 2011 | Play Dead | The Meza Brothers | A zombie apocalypse unites a ragtag pack of dogs in the ruined streets of Miami. Immune to the epidemic, they must stick together to survive in the midst of ferocious undead and human survivors in this unauthorized sequel to Homeward Bound. | Fantasia International Film Festival | [56] | ||
| 2012 | Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke | Jillian Mayer, Lucas Leyva | A modern Miami adaptation of the 1962 French short film La Jetee, the film recounts Uncle Luke's rise to fame as he changes the face of hip-hop and fights for first amendment rights- and later as he ushers Miami into a golden era of peace and prosperity as Mayor. Everything changes when the Turkey Point Nuclear Reactor has a meltdown. | Sundance Film Festival 2012 |
| [57] | |
| 2012 | Miami 1996 | Nick Corirossi | A found footage film from a Miami booty party gone horribly wrong. | Online | [58] | ||
| 2012 | Adventures of Christopher Bosh in the Multiverse! | Christina Felisgrau, Ronnie Rivera (Bleeding Palm) | The true story behind how the Miami Heat won the NBA title in 2012 despite one of their star players being an interstellar prince who was called away to do battle with evil foes bent on finally making the Internet completely useless. | Online | [59] | ||
| 2012 | C#CKFIGHT | Julian Yuri Rodriguez | A deconstructed adaptation of Dante's Inferno that takes place at a bath salt fueled fighting ring in Miami's underworld. | Fantasia Film Festival 2013 |
| [60] | |
| 2012 | When We Lived in Miami | Amy Seimetz | Filmed during Hurricane Isaac, When We Lived in Miami is a hypnotic short about the lengths one woman will go to keep her family from falling apart. | Vienna International Film Festival 2012 |
| [61] | |
| 2013 | The Places Where We Lived | Bernardo Britto | A man wakes up with a weird feeling. His parents are selling his childhood home. | SXSW Film Festival 2013 |
| ||
| 2013 | To Capitalist Poem #5 | Kayla Delacerda | An adaptation of Campbell McGrath's poem "Capitalist Poem #5." | [62] | |||
| 2013 | Si Nos Dejan | Celia Rowlson-Hall | A love story told through bubble baths, Hollywood movies, interrupted fantasies, Mariachi songs, beachcombers, missed connections and Pamela Anderson. | SXSW Film Festival 2013 | [63] | ||
| 2013 |
| Jillian Mayer, Lucas Leyva | A comedic satirical sci-fi pop-musical based on the theories of Ray Kurzweil and other futurists. It's the story of two Miami girls and how they deal with the technological singularity, as told through as series of cinematic tweets. | Sundance Film Festival 2013 |
| ||
| 2014 | Sea Devil | Dean C. Marcial, Brett Potter | An American fisherman attempts to smuggle two Cuban immigrants into Miami, passing them off as day laborers. While the group trawls for shrimp, a fourth person boards the boat, carrying a secret at the bottom of the Ocean. | Fantasia Film Festival 2014 |
| [64] | |
| 2014 | The Coral Reef Are Dreaming Again | Lucas Leyva | Gregor and Harold, two corals living in the underwater remains of Miami, share their dreams with each other. | with Coral Morphologic | [65] | ||
| 2014 | The Voice Thief | Adan Jodorowsky | A man goes on a surreal odyssey through Miami's psychedelic underworld in search of his wife's missing voice. | l'Etrange Festival Paris 2014 |
| [66] | |
| 2014 | Yearbook | Bernardo Britto | A man is hired to compile the definitive history of human existence before the planet blows up. | Sundance Film Festival 2014 |
| [67] | |
| 2015 | Papa Machete | Jonathan David Kane | 200 years ago, the slaves of Haiti defeated Napoleon's armies in the historic revolution of 1791-1804. One of their weapons was the very tool they used to work the land: the machete. Papa Machete explores the esoteric martial art that evolved through this victory through the practice and life of a farmer named Alfred Avril. The short film documents his proud devotion to his heritage in the face of bitter poverty, and his efforts to keep this mysterious art alive. | Sundance Film Festival 2015 |
| [68] | |
| 2015 | The Sun Like a Big Dark Animal | Christina Felisgrau, Ronnie Rivera (Bleeding Palm) | A computer and a woman fall in love only to be torn apart because of their inappropriate feelings for each other. | Sundance Film Festival 2015 |
| [69] | |
| 2015 | All Your Favorite Shows! | Danny Madden | Shows and commercials and videos and more shows. That's all this kid sees and that's all he cares to see. | SXSW Film Festival 2015 |
| [70] | |
| 2015 | Diamond Princess En Plein Aire | Jacolby Satterwhite | Scored by Patricia Satterwhite's drawings and Miami rapper Trina's iconic Diamond Princess album, the piece uses the hyperbolic language and imagery from both sources to construct a hedonistic, performative and queer utopic narrative. | Perez Art Museum Miami 2015 | [71] | ||
| 2015 | Biscayne World | Marnie Ellen Hertzler, Michael Arcos | An animation based on the insane everyday interactions on Biscayne Boulevard, as seen through the ubiquitous, iconic graffiti eyeballs of street artist Ahol Sniffs Glue. | Glasgow Film Festival 2015 | [72] | ||
| 2016 | Swimming in Your Skin Again | Terence Nance | A film about motherhood, banality, Miami, the water, the divine feminine, and how to sing in church in a way that calls forth your own adulthood. | Sundance Film Festival 2016 |
| [73] | |
| 2016 | Boniato | Eric Mainade, The Meza Brothers | An illegal migrant worker decides it's time to move on from picking crops and find her father. Little does she know, insidious supernatural forces have a different plan for her. | Sundance Film Festival 2016 | [74] | ||
| 2016 | Dolfun | Sebastián Silva | What begins as a love story becomes an existential crisis when filmmaker Sebastián Silva flies to Miami to fulfill his lifelong dream of swimming with a dolphin. | Sundance Film Festival 2016 | [75] | ||
| 2016 | Glove | Alexa Lim Haas, Bernardo Britto | The true story of a glove that's been floating in space forever since 1968. | Sundance Film Festival 2016 |
| [76] | |
| 2017 | The Sky Is a Gap | Rachel Rossin | An immersive Virtual Reality Installation that uses motion capture and spatial-mapping to allow users to move time forwards and back. | Sundance Film Festival 2017 | Virtual Reality | [77] | |
| 2017 | Kaiju Bunraku | Jillian Mayer, Lucas Leyva | A day in the life of a Husband and a Wife, living in a world of giant monsters. | Sundance Film Festival 2017 |
| [78] | |
| 2017 | Möbius | Sam Kuhn | A tale of magic and mutation half remembered by a teen poet whose beloved has mysteriously disappeared. | Cannes Film Festival 2017 |
| ||
| 2017 | Lance Lizardi | Xander Robin | A young man takes his love for lizards to the extreme. | AFI Fest 2017 | [79] | ||
| 2017 | Growing Girl | Marnie Ellen Hertzler | A PowerPoint presentation about snakes and all of the things I wish I would have done. | Maryland Film Festival 2017 |
| [80] | |
| 2018 | GREAT CHOICE | Robin Comisar | A woman gets stuck in a Red Lobster commercial. | Sundance Film Festival 2018 |
| [81] | |
| 2018 | Mud | Shandiin Tome | On her last day, Ruby faces the inescapable remnants of alcoholism, family, and culture. | Sundance Film Festival 2018 | [82] | ||
| 2018 | Agua Viva | Alexa Lim Haas | A Chinese manicurist in Miami attempts to describe feelings she doesn't have the words for. | Sundance Film Festival 2018 |
| [83] | |
| 2018 | PLUR | Julie Fliegenspan | A claymation adaptation of a series of actual voicemails received after making out with someone at a rave. | Sundance Film Festival 2018 | [84] | ||
| 2019 | Liberty | Faren Humes | As the Liberty Square Housing Projects are redeveloped, Liberty and Sheatopia deal with a shifting friendship after one of them wins the coveted title of Ms. Pork N Beans in a dance contest. | Berlin International Film Festival 2019 |
| [85] | |
| 2019 | Gepetto | Z Behl | A re-imagining of Pinocchio in the style of a deconstructed spaghetti western. | [86] [87] | |||
| 2019 | Dirt Daughter | Marnie Ellen Hertzler | A lonely security guard dreams of finding a companion on farmersonly.com. | Acquired by The Criterion Collection | [88] [89] | ||
| 2020 | T | Keisha Rae Witherspoon | Set decades in the future, T follows three participants in the 50th Annual T Ball, in which community members of Liberty City assemble to model wildly innovative "R.I.P." T-shirts designed to honor their deceased loved ones. | Sundance Film Festival 2020 |
| [90] | |
| 2020 | Valerio's Day Out | Michael Arcos | A young jaguar goes on a killing spree when he escapes from his enclosure at a zoo. After he's captured, sedated, and relocated, he makes a video diary for his significant other, Lula. | Sundance Film Festival 2020 |
| [91] | |
| 2020 | Mingus's The Clown | Trevor Bazile | A musical adaptation of Charles Mingus's composition which tells the story of a clown who tries to please The People, but only succeeds in ending his life. | [92] |