Florida is a Feeling

The birthplace of Miami bass and the home of Mar-a-Lago, you can love Florida or hate it but you can’t deny that the Sunshine State, once dismissed as a swampy, stiflingly hot backwater fit only for citrus farmers and blue marlin fishers, has taken on a crucial role in the political and popular culture of these United States. Metrograph’s Florida is a Feeling, inspired by our run of Alexandra Simpson’s countdown-to-hurricane-and-oblivion feature No Sleep Till, brings together films in which the 27th state can be seen as a gauzy dream, a garish nightmare, and everything in-between, with Florida-set pictures from some directors who were born there (Kelly Reichardt, Barry Jenkins), some who’ve made it their second home (Harmony Korine, Michael Bay), and some who stayed as long as it took to bask in (and capture on celluloid) the ineffable Floridianess of it all.