Last year the cliché “good things come in pairs” held true for independent filmmaker and Miami Underground Film Festival founder Rafael Diaz Wagner. Just as the festival welcomed its first attendees, Diaz Wagner’s wife made time for the baby shower of their son Juan Carlos. “She had a shirt on that said, “Future Director” pointing to her belly,” he recalls, smiling with the staunch pride of a Cuban-American father. Juggling a harried schedule spent playing daddy, working at a cigar store and finishing the sound design on his feature film, Diaz Wagner still manages to program the Miami Underground with an open air and calm appreciation of all filmmakers’ efforts. Despite its unfortunate acronym, the festival's solid sophomore effort attracted attention from local indie filmmakers to bigwigs including The Constant Gardener Executive Producer Donald Ranvaud. "Getting the call that he wanted to premiere in our festival was huge," Diaz Wagner says. "A few days later I picked up the cell phone, and it's Ranvaud saying, "Do you want to go to the movies? I have an extra ticket." I couldn't go, but when I hung up, it was like, 'The executive producer of The Constant Gardener just called me to go to the movies. That's crazy."

Taking time out for a quick cup of coffee, Diaz Wagner here shares his ideas about making films in Miami, the trends in his own work and the relevance—or rather irrelevance—of the Miami International Film Festival to represent independent filmmakers working in South Florida.

SM: Would you mind giving me a brief historical run down of how you started the festival and why you wanted to start it?

RDW:  Well, I’m a filmmaker, and I’d made a feature film. I applied to the Miami International Film Festival, and then there were four other feature film directors, some of them I knew but I didn’t know all of them, and we all applied. None of us got in. The odds of five filmmakers doing a feature film in Miami is very rare. There are a lot of videos, but we do five features and none of them get in. To me that was an impossibility. We can’t all be bad. Some of us may not be that good, but even as a token, give one of these poor bastards a shot. I just didn’t think there was a place in Miami where people could showcase their work. We started it from that, and we said, “Let’s do it like Slamdance; let’s do it at the same time (as MIFF).”

SM: So, we’ve got Miami International which has really narrowed down on the Latino community, and that’s how it’s established itself in the mainstream festival circuit. But, what do you think of the arts scene in Miami in general, and how hard is it to get people out to film festivals and other alternatives?

RDW: I think they’re here, but it’s just that Miami is very separated and section-like. Beach people won’t come to the (Coral) Gables. Some Gables people will go to the beach but not all. People in Kendall sure as hell won’t go to the beach. So doing the festival at the Miami Beach Cinematheque brought us a certain crowd, but I know there are people who couldn’t make it. Parking was madness on the Saturday; it was spring break. But, I used to work at a video store close to here, Lion Video, and their speciality was foreign film, foreign exclusives, and from that, I know there is a market. We would get people from Key West who would come in to rent videos and then mail them back. So there is a crowd; you just really have to get out there.

SM: What themes do you see Miami filmmakers attacking and wanting to bring to the festival?

RDW: It’s about showing the real Miami, showing more than just Ocean Drive. Miami is very unique, and in the film that I did, Miami is almost a character. We start off in Miami Beach which is what everyone knows. Then the character goes into seedier parts of town to the point where he ends up in Miami Jai-Alai which is the northwest area and has old warehouses. Where people were born and raised, my friends asked, “That’s Miami?” And, I said, “Yes, that’s Miami.” There’re railroad tracks, shipyards; there's an ugly and seedy Miami that you don’t get to see.

SM: Talking about your own aesthetic as a filmmaker, what brought you into filmmaking in the first place?

RDW: I made my first movie when I was ten. When the fist BetaMax came out, we would make Star Trek movies. Then in high school I kept doing that, but, my parents, being first generation, their goal was getting me to college. Then, when they get you to college, they don’t want you to study film or art. It’s the immigrant mentality of “do something where you can make money.” It’s not that they told me not to do film;…they just hinted to do something else. Then everyone I know is a lawyer, accountant—the basic, law, accounting, engineering. So, I studied English Lit, but it was like, “What am I going to do with an English Lit degree in Miami?” Everybody was like teach, teach. Little by little, I knew (film was) what I wanted to do. It's who I am. Then I met my wife, and she encouraged me. She’s really the catalyst to say, “Do it.”

SM: How would you define the trends that you explore in your work?

RDW: I worked at a video store so imagine. I’m influenced by so many directors. It’s taking the European film—you see the story, and it’s great but something’s missing. It needs not a Hollywood-ness but a spark, and I’m a mix of both. I was born here and am American, but my Cuban roots are so strong. It’s the blend.

SM: Yeah, you pinpointed Rodriguez, Meyer, Jarmusch, and…let’s see I’d written this down…Cassavettes. Why these particular four directors?

RDW: Jarmusch because I like his pace, and I like to use black and white. I also like his courage, his stories; they’re very slow. Cassavetes because he’s the truest independent from back in the day, and he’s very organic.  I like to use video because I can just tell the actors to do it, and if they mess up a line, I’m just saying, “Go with it.” If you see the raw footage, it’s all go with it. I’m a writer so I love the script, but I know that with film it’s not a writer’s medium. It’s for directors and actors. That’s the blueprint, but “go with it.” I like it to be real. One of the things I do is to sit in coffee shops, and you hear how people talk. That’s how I like to write.

SM: How is your aesthetic as a filmmaker different from or similar to the eyes you use when you go to program for the festival?

RDW: It’s difficult. There are several categories. There’s open, home cooking—which includes anyone from Florida—and there’s the student film. You judge each differently. You can’t judge a student film like you judge an $8 million movie. When it comes to documentaries, I don’t have to agree with the viewpoint. If it’s well-made, I’ll put it in there. You have to have an open mind, and I just want to give people a chance to exhibit their work. Certain films that I know may not get a chance elsewhere, I’ll give them a shoot more so than a mainstream movie.

SM: What qualifies a filmmaker to deserve a shoot? Do you think that anyone who goes out and has the chops to make a film deserves to be recognized, or is it this mainstream mentality that you have to cater to what sells?

RDW: Unfortunately, as a filmmaker, you can’t help but think marketing nowadays. People off the street who don’t know anything about film, know grosses. That’s really sad, but it’s the truth… There’s an Italian director in the festival, Giacomo Cesari. Great film (The Burning Wake), very avant-garde. There’s a guy dressed in a pink bunny suit, hopping through the Mexican desert. Can that sell? There’s no way in the universe, but does he care? Not at all. I asked him, and he said, “I just shoot. I shoot to shoot.” He’s a hired gun, a DP, and he just shoots, and where it ends up is not his problem. I wish we could do that, but being here in the States, I can’t be in that reality. When it comes to home cooking, I’ve told people, "If you’re from Florida, and you make a video about you petting your cat, I’ll put it in." There’s just no where else to be seen, and everyone deserves at least once to see their baby on the big screen. For open, I’m more critical. It has to be well made. I might not like it, but it has to be well made.

SM: There’s been a lot of talk coming out of the big festivals Slamdance, Sundance in which directors will come out with shorts and the next year premiere features. How relevant do you feel shorts are?

RDW: I made a feature for $15,000, and I see people who spend $100,000 to $150,000 on a short. You can look it up, the last ten people who won an Academy Award for a short are still flipping burgers. For some people it works, but for me, in this day and age with Final Cut and digital filmmaking, I would say go the extra mile. If (the studios) like it, they’ll give you money to remake it. As a programmer, I love shorts. It’s a favorite in the festival, but I don’t have the patience to make them. I don’t see the market in it. Go for the feature.

SM: In terms of the life of the festival, how long do you want to ride this out?

RDW: This is for the long haul. We’re never going to go away. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Miami International Film Festival goes away, and we are still here.

SM: What do you think would render Miami International irrelevant?

RDW: Well, they’re about to change the director. (MIFF festival director for the past five years, Nicole Guillemet has just turned over the position as head to Patrick de Bokay.) She just didn’t know anything about Miami, or South Florida for that matter, and you just could tell. She was trying to do a mini-Sundance here, and that just doesn’t work. I’m biased. I was a member of the film society and supported Nat Chediak who founded the festival. When they booted him out, I boycotted. I’ve never gone back.* Plus, the programming is not the same. Before, there was one theater with very few films, and it was a week long. The first thing they did was to add multiple theaters at South Beach Regal. It’s a great movie theater, but it’s not the same. It’s going to an 18-megaplex theater where you see all the current films, and you see a little arrow pointing, “Film Festival Here,” not going to the Olympia, a 40-year-old theater that seated 2,000. They always criticized (Nat Chediak) saying, “There are not enough screens.” But, he’s like, “There’s no other theater in Miami that has 2,000 seats. My one screening covers all the others.” And, he would sell out certain things. He brought Almodovar to Miami for the first time and Trueba, who did Belle epoque and won the Academy Award. He brought him here first. His vision for movies appealed to me. I dreamed of being in the Miami International Film Festival and having Nat Chediak introduce my film. But, I have no ill will toward them, and I wish they would be more relevant. It would be great to have that cohesion with the underground and the mainstream.

RDW:...It’s not about the money. It never will be. It’ll be about not taking a loss. If we make a little profit, that will be great. It’s about showing films, giving people a shot. I told my wife when the movies started coming in, “It’s weird to be on this side of it. I’m holding people’s dreams in my hands.” One day I’ll discover someone who’s a lot better than me. I know that’s going to happen.

SM: But then maybe you’ll be that Nat Chediak for someone else; that’ll be a nice inversion.

For more information on Miami Underground, visit www.miamiundergroundff.com.

*After running the festival for two decades, founder Nat Chediak resigned his post as director when a desire by Florida International University prompted an increase in the number of films screened annually. Although Chediak was not officially outsed from his post, the college's action was seen by many film society members and festival attendees as directly confrontational to the original spirit of the small but quality festival. Read the Miami New-Times article by Frank Houston and Robert Sims for more background.

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