Roma is not the only 2018 foreign film making headlines, because according to Variety, Birds of Passage has just made some major wins at the Miami Film Festival. Birds of Passage is an epic crime drama from Colombia, and tells the story of a Wayuu family living in the 1960’s and the 1970’s who get involved in the illegal drug trade. The film was directed by Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra, and the country’s submission to the 91st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The movie is in the languages of English, Spanish, and the Columbian native language of Wayuu.
The Miami Film Festival awarded Birds of Passage the Knight Marimbas Award, which comes with $40,000 in prize money. A list of some of the other festival winners can be found here. Other major winners from the festival include Screwball, a documentary directed by Billy Corben about a Major League Baseball scandal, which earned the audience award for best feature. Pahokee earned Knight Made in MIA Award for feature, which is the award for the best film made and set in Florida, and the Knight Made in MIA Award for shorts went to Liberty and Six Degrees of Immigration.
It is wonderful that foreign films like Roma and Birds of Passage are getting so much attention, and hopefully it means that we will get to see more movies like these in the future.