2017 Miami Film Festival will spotlight women directors

15 movies directed by women, including two world premieres, will be shown as part of the 2017 Miami Film Festival’s spotlight on female filmmakers.

Miami Dade College, which presents the annual event, also announced it will continue the partnership with Google launched at last year’s festival with a seminar series that will search for solutions for racial and gender bias in the film and technology industries. Participants will include actress Sarah Gadon (“Indignation”), producer Tilane Jones (“Middle of Nowhere”), writer-editor Rebecca Theodore-Vachon (theurbandaily.com) and author/comedian Radhika Vaz.

Among the movies that will be shown:

▪  “Embargo” (dir. Jeri Rice): A documentary on the origins, history, impact and evolution of the U.S. embargo on Cuba;

▪  “A Concrete Cinema” (dir. Luz Ruciello): A man embarks on a quixotic quest to build a movie theater in his hometown;

▪  “Veinte Años” (dir. Alice de Andrade): A portrait of three couples 20 years after they got married in post-Soviet Union Cuba in 1992;

▪  “Don’t Blame It On Your Karma!” (dir. Maria Ripoli): 13 years after high school, a Madrid fashion designer reunites with the boy she used to have a crush on, now a pop music superstar;

▪  “Lipstick Under My Burkha” (dir. Alankrita Shrivastava): Four women living in a conservative society long for personal freedom;

▪  “Maria (and Everybody Else)” (dir. Nely Reguera): A woman who took care of her dad and brothers after the death of her mother is crestfallen when her father announces he’s getting married;

▪  “The Night My Mother Killed My Father” (dir. Inés Paris): A fading movie star resorts to extreme measures to land a big part in a new film;

▪  “The Empty Box” (dir. Claudia Sainte-Luce): A woman of Mexican-Haitian descent is forced to look after her estranged father;

▪  “The Grownups” (dir. Maite Alberdi): Four people who have attended a sheltered school for children with Down syndrome for the last 40 years make their way into the real world.

The 2017 Miami Film Festival will take place March 3-12. Tickets go on sale Feb. 10. For a complete lineup of the women directors program, visit www.miamifilmfestival.com/women.

This story was originally published December 12, 2016 at 12:01 PM with the headline "2017 Miami Film Festival will spotlight women directors."