2010 Knight Arts Challenge Miami winner Borscht Film Festival was awarded $150,000 to shape Miami’s cinematic identity by showcasing and creating original films that tell unique Miami stories. This week, FilmMaker Magazine celebrated Borscht’s approach, calling it “the perfect example of local, sustainable filmmaking.” Borscht’s Minister of Agriculture Andrew Hevia contributed a piece to the magazine, touching on Miami’s character, the Festival, the Knight Arts Challenge and more. Click here to read the entire article and below for an excerpt:

Reprinted from FilmMaker Magazine:

Your sensibilities matter to us because we have tried to be honest… — not journalistically true, but thematically so.— David Simon

You know the best thing about Miami? It’s so close to the United States. — Anonymous Miami-Dade Resident Miami is odd.

As a city, it has a peculiar character and a reputation for sweat-drenched lunacy and mayhem. It’s no surprise that major productions frequently shoot here, and a no-brainer we have our own CSI franchise. Hollywood helps promote Miami’s image as a sexy, violent frontier town built on drug money and corruption. It’s a city defined by its media and its myth, built from outside the city looking in.