Patrick De Bokay, the freshman director of the Miami International Film Festival, has a thing for numbers. A former advertising and distribution executive for Hollywood studios, he's constantly spitting out percentages and figures -- ``The average American goes to the movies 4.9 times each year. The French go 3.04 times. . . . Florida has more film festivals per square foot than any other state.''

And so on.

Since taking the festival director's seat last March, though, one number in particular has been weighing heavily on De Bokay: 25.

When La misma luna (Under the Same Moon), a Mexican drama about a young boy who crosses the border into the United States to find his mother, unspools Thursday night at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, the 25th edition of the venerable event begins.

Keeping pace with its home city, the festival has grown and even transformed over the past quarter-century. Whether getting bigger has made the festival better is a matter of personal taste.

But this year's event is easily the biggest in festival history, boasting 120 short and feature-length films including 20 world premieres, the addition of Miami Beach's Byron Carlyle theater as a seventh screening venue, an unusually strong workshop and seminar lineup, and scheduled appearances by Demi Moore, Helen Hunt, Danny Glover, Chris Cooper, Fito Paez and Gloria and Emilio Estefan -- among other famous folks.

De Bokay, who moved from Los Angeles to take the job, says he has spent much of the past year ''knocking on doors'' getting to know the city -- and making sure the city knows the festival is theirs.

''I've worked really hard on trying to get people to see the festival as something that is in Miami, by Miami, for Miami,'' he says. ``I want to draw in more young people. By closing night, I want everyone who comes to the festival this year to have felt like it is owned by the community.''

Technically, of course, the festival is owned by Miami Dade College, which organizes the event. Last year's festival, which cost $1.9 million to produce, drew a record-high attendance of 70,000. This year's event has an operating budget of $2.2 million, 24 percent of it going to marketing and promotion to swell the audience even more.

Like any nonprofit arts organization, the festival relies heavily on grants, and in-kind donations, and the academic connection helps secure them.

''Sustainability is a term that has become very popular these days, and the association with the college has given the festival an institutional foundation it never had before,'' says Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, who has attended the festival since its inception. ``It's amazing to me how Miami has become increasingly identified with culture over the last few years, and the festival has elevated our reputation in that area.''

ACADEMIC GROUNDING

MDC president Eduardo Padron, who took over the festival from Florida International University in 2004, says ``It wouldn't have made much sense for us to assume responsibility for the festival if our School of Entertainment and Design Technology didn't exist.

``But over the last four years, the festival has galvanized tremendous support for our film program. And it has also helped position Miami away from the so-called cultural desert it was labeled many years back.''

De Bokay says it is that connection with the academic world that makes Miami's festival unique, giving it a sense of purpose beyond entertainment. ``This festival, like most festivals of its size around the world, started as a gathering of film aficionados and film lovers who just wanted to get together and experience movies together. But over the last 20 years, cinema as an art has evolved into an industry.

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