The Subtropic Film Festival is coming to Lake Worth Beach for the first time. The three-day festival of Florida-made and Florida-rooted film runs Nov. 6 to 8, and on Saturday, Nov. 7, it puts two feature-length screenings on the stage of the Lake Worth Playhouse at 713 Lake Avenue. The festival calls it its first activation in Lake Worth.

The rest of the weekend splits between the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach and Afflux Studios at Gstar, a production studio at 2060 S. Congress Ave. in Palm Springs, where the festival holds its filmmaker workshops, its awards and its closing night.

Saturday night on Lake Avenue

Both Playhouse screenings are features, each followed by a 15-minute question-and-answer session, and each costs $12.

  • 5:30 p.m.: First They Came for My College. A 105-minute documentary by Patrick Bresnan, filmed in Sarasota around New College of Florida, the state's honors college, built from footage of its students, professors and organizers. Bresnan's earlier film The Rabbit Hunt won a Grand Jury Award at the Florida Film Festival in 2017.
  • 8:15 p.m.: Junkie. A 105-minute drama written and directed by William Means, following a woman over 72 hours after she leaves rehab again, trying to repair things with her son. The lead, Rocky Shay, is in recovery herself.

Opening night at the Norton

The festival opens Friday, Nov. 6, at 7 p.m. in the Norton's Stiller Auditorium, which seats 205. The program is five short films by Florida filmmakers about the state's land and water: Alligator Altar (Leslie Ramos), Same Water (Martine Granby), [Water] Acknowledgement (Josh Corson), The Flowerkeeper (Nora Long) and Harajuku, FL (Andres Gimenez). The $10 ticket includes museum access and the after party.

Two features at the museum

  • Frogtown, Saturday at 2 p.m. ($18). Directed by Costa Karalis, who grew up near Clearwater, and shot in Marianna, a Panhandle town of about 3,000, with more than 60 residents appearing as themselves. It won Best Florida Feature and the Audience Award at the Florida Film Festival, where it premiered.
  • Honeyjoon, Sunday at 2 p.m. ($18). The debut feature of Miami native Lilian T. Mehrel, a mother and daughter in the Azores a year after a death in the family. It was funded through Tribeca's $1 million Untold Stories Award and premiered at Tribeca.

The shorts blocks in Palm Springs

Afflux Studios hosts themed shorts programs both afternoons at $12 each. On Saturday they include Jit Life (1 p.m.), stories about growing up in South Florida, and Everything Is Normal Here (4 p.m.), a block of Florida oddities with titles such as Florida Monster and Manatees Strike Back. On Sunday, Touch Soil (1 p.m.) collects films made in Florida by Floridians, and Subtropic Kids (2 p.m.) shows work by high school and college filmmakers.

Sunday also brings The Moths and the Flame, a 97-minute documentary by Plantation-born Kevin Contento, who spent a year with young fathers in Pahokee, men he has known since childhood. It premiered in the Forum section of the Berlin International Film Festival. Tropical Park, an 85-minute Miami feature by Hansel Porras Garcia shot as one unbroken take inside a car, screens Sunday at 3 p.m. with the short Pangea.

Beyond the screenings, the festival schedules workshops on shooting and processing film stock, meetings with high school filmmakers and an Art After Dark program of open studios and live music.

Tickets

A weekend pass is $30 and a day pass is $20. Both cover the Saturday and Sunday programs, including the two Lake Worth Playhouse screenings and the festival parties, but not the Norton opening night. The festival says pass prices will rise closer to the dates, and all ticket sales are final. Seats are held until five minutes after showtime, after which empty seats can go to the rush line, so the festival asks people to arrive 15 minutes early.

Tickets and passes are sold through the festival's ticketing page. The Lake Worth Playhouse is at 713 Lake Avenue, Lake Worth Beach.

Sources