ArtiGras Podcast · ArtiGras Fine Arts Festival

Filmmaking in Focus: Inside the Rise of Subtropic with Noelia Solange and David Hamzik

·1 hr 25 min·5 clips

Opening night features The Python Hunt at the Norton Museum, with Everglades artists and a director Q&A.

The conversation starts close to home. Sarah LaPierre talks about Subtropic Film Festival through the people building it, then brings in Noelia Rubino and David Hamzik to explain how their roles came together. Noelia begins with the backstory. She remembers her time with the Miami Film Festival and a co-founder telling her about a new festival he wanted to start here. The tone stays easy and curious. Sarah does not treat the festival like some polished institution dropped from the sky. She keeps coming back to the work behind it, which gives the interview some welcome texture. The guests are honest about the pressure too. After three days, the team has to sit there and wonder whether all that planning landed the way they hoped. That is the part that sticks. Creative work gets described as a kind of puzzle. One piece fits, another does not, and sometimes the next answer sends you back to the beginning. Then the conversation turns to place. Sarah asks how growing up in Jupiter shows up in the guest's films, whether as a character, a thread, or just the air around the story. The answer has some ache in it. Florida once felt ordinary: beaches on weekends, palm trees, rain, all the familiar stuff. Leaving for New York City changed that. Distance made homesickness, smells, feeling, and pride easier to notice. Florida becomes a muse from afar, especially in the memory of making itineraries for New York friends visiting over Christmas break. By the end, the festival, the films, and the local arts scene feel tied to one quiet question: what does home give artists after they leave and come back? The close stays practical and warm, pointing listeners toward Subtropic's new dot-org home and the work local artists are putting into the world.

As heard by us

A warm, conversational festival episode built around local creative biography.

Artie Graw Podcast's conversation with Subtropic Film Festival stays close to the people behind the event. Sarah LaPierre gives Noelia Rubino and David Hamzik room to explain how a very new festival came together, and Noelia's path from the Miami Film Festival to the West Palm…

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Why you'd press play

You want a warm look at Subtropic Film Festival and the people building it in West Palm Beach.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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