This LGBTQ film fest returns to Miami with free Uber rides to theaters for screenings

Unrequited love. Secret lives. A dramatic retelling of a tense moment in Wilton Manors. And a magical reggaeton star with dating advice.

This year’s OUTshine LGBTQ+ Film Festival features films aimed to make audiences laugh, cry, think and pack local theaters. The festival, which starts Thursday and runs until April 28, includes more than 50 feature and short films from around the world and South Florida at the Silverspot Cinema downtown and Regal South Beach.

For the first time, OUTshine partnered with the City of Miami to offer free Uber rides to and from screenings at the Silverspot within a 25 mile radius until April 24. (That’s right, something free in Miami.) Joe Bilancio, the OUTshine director of programming, said the festival took audience feedback to make the screenings more accessible.

“We do understand there are some difficulties with getting downtown and there is some difficulty getting on the beach,” he said. “It’s important for us to be able to offer it and cut down on the reasons that [people] don’t attend.”

But the festival’s biggest selling point is its lineup of films that represent the breadth of the LGBTQ experience with nuanced, fully realized characters, Bilancio said.

“[Gay characters] used to be one dimensional or two dimensional, and now they’re characters that are part of the story,” he said. “They just happen to be gay.”

OUTshine opens with “Turtles,” a Belgian and Canadian romantic comedy with a quirky, dry sense of humor. In the film, which takes place in Brussels, Henri and Thom have been together for 35 years, but their relationship quickly becomes strained when Henri retires from his job. Desperate to save their relationship, Thom is willing to do anything to rekindle their love. So, he asks Henri for a divorce.

“They’re cynical about love and cynical about each other, yet deep down, they really love each other,” Bilancio said. “It really is a love story, but it’s told in a very different way. In part it is a rom com, but it’s not all roses and daffodils.”

The festival closes with another international film, this time from Italy. In “Mascarpone: The Rainbow Cake,” down-on-his-luck Luca gets a new boyfriend and Antonio becomes a famous pastry chef. They reconnect three years after their close friend’s death and Antonio misreads Luca’s affection.

New to the festival’s lineup this year is its Latin Spotlight programming on April 20, highlighting LGBTQ films from Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and Mexico.

In the Mexican film “All The Silence,” Miriam is a hearing child of deaf parents who’s passionate about teaching Mexican Sign Language and acting in a theater group. Though she’s steeped in the deaf and hard of hearing community and has a deaf girlfriend, Miriam struggles to come to terms with her fate when she begins to lose her hearing.

“It’s interesting to see how somebody who is a part of the community but more on the outside looking in, if you will, is now becoming part of that community,” Bilancio said. “It’s a very powerful, very gripping film.”

Earlier this month, Miami-based filmmakers made a splash at the Miami Film Festival, like Chris Molina’s feature “Fallen Fruit,” which is also screening at OUTshine. On April 22, local filmmakers get a chance to shine again at OUTshine’s Cocktails & Cinema: South Florida Filmmakers Showcase of five locally-made short films.

Among them is Eddy Moon’s “El Reggaetonero,” a comedy with original music by Mago Music and DEMBOYZ. The film follows Lily who plays a mysterious vinyl record as she nervously gets ready for a date with Taylor and accidentally summons El Reggaetonero, a reggaeton star who helps her find the confidence she needs. It’s like if Robin Williams’ Genie from “Aladdin” meets Bad Bunny, which just so happened to be Moon’s inspirations for the character.

Moon came up with the idea during the pandemic when he was looking for a confidence boost himself. Like many artists at the time, Moon was anxious about the future. And, like everyone in Miami, he was listening to Bad Bunny’s 2020 album “Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana” on repeat. He grew jealous of Bad Bunny’s braggadocious attitude and lyrics.

“I’m like, ‘Man, I wish I had that kind of confidence,’” Moon said. “What if Bad Bunny came out of this album to talk to me and get me out of my rut?”

After a sold out screening at the Miami Film Festival, Moon said he’s honored and excited to show “El Reggaetonero” to Miami’s LGBTQ community. When asked why he chose to depict two women dating in the film, he said he looks forward to a day where on-screen queer relationships are so normalized “no one would ever ask me that question.”

“What’s most important about film isn’t just the entertainment value. It’s the fact that after you watch a film, you get to have really complex conversations about identity, about who we are and what makes us who we are,” Moon said. “So I’m excited to have those really deep conversations with the LGBTQ community in South Florida after they watch this film.”

Another South Florida film sure to spark important yet difficult conversations is Christopher Beytia Frentzel’s “Frag.” In the 13-minute short, a bartender tries to reason with a disgruntled veteran who placed a grenade on the counter of a gay bar. The film is largely based on a real, harrowing incident that happened at The Corner Pub in Wilton Manors, a Broward LGBTQ neighborhood, in 2022.

It hit close to home for Frentzel, who lived in Hollywood at the time. His boyfriend lived just 5 minutes away from the bar.

“It was shocking to see that happen in our community,” he said. “[It was] kind of a reminder that our safe spaces are never really safe, even in one of the gayest towns in America.”

Frentzel interviewed people who were there that night, including bartender Joseph Shakespeare and patron Darryl Darling.

In real life, an agitated man showed Shakespeare the grenade, which turned out to be inactive. Darling, a former U.S. Marine, distracted the man with a conversation about their military and police service. Meanwhile, Shakespeare discreetly called police and made sure other guests got out safely. The man, Frentzel learned in his research, was dealing with internalized homophobia, post-traumatic stress disorder and the recent death of a friend.

Frentzel, 25, funded the short film on his own after tackling a feature-length film while attending Florida State University. He said he hopes “Frag” reminds community members to look out for each other.

“It’s kind of difficult in the gay community because there’s sometimes a lot of rejection if you don’t look a certain way or if you’re a certain age,” he said. “I wanted to tell a story that is about our community uniting but also shines a light on some folks that we might leave behind in the community, whether we know it or not.”

The film ends with real news coverage of the incident, including an interview Shakespeare gave Local 10 News: “This is our community, you know what I mean? So I want to keep everybody safe.”

OUTshine LGBTQ+ Film Festival

When: April 18 - 28

Where: Silverspot Cinema Miami, 300 SE 3rd Street (April 18-24) and Regal South Beach, 1120 Lincoln Road Mall, Miami Beach (April 25-28)

Info: Full schedule and tickets available online at outshinefilm.com

This story was produced with financial support from individuals and Berkowitz Contemporary Arts in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.