Blog Post #263: Cosford Cinema and the Few Loyalties!
- Gabriel Rhenals
- Nov 26
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 28
BABYLON SCREENING
The lights turned off.
The curtains parted.
The screen lit up.
The sound rose.
The film began.
Damien Chazelle's 2022 film Babylon thusly unfurled some months ago at the Bill Cosford Cinema on University of Miami's campus in Coral Gables for an audience of myself and the venue's manager Rene Rodriguez. After the screening, Rene, who'd been interested in revisiting the film since his initial viewing upon release, and I ambled toward the back of the auditorium awash with glee and convened just outside the theater to share an equal measure of ecstatic commentary over Chazelle's boldly audacious love letter to the ineffable divinity of cinema. So, there we were; two film lovers still in the throes of a youthful obsession that never receded and likely never will.
While I certainly found Chazelle's film a remarkable accomplishment, the afternoon became an indelible memory for me for another reason. Since 2022, Cosford Cinema has served as the exhibition launch pad for all but one of my feature films. In this most spacious A/V sanctum, I screened them for the first time before a gallery of family, friends, collaborators and their guests. And upon the first of these gracious accommodations made possible by Rene, I pledged my most loyal patronage from then on and, since my gesture, I think I've proved its earnestness by having attended 60+ screenings at Cosford. However, I never anticipated how deep and abiding my appreciation of cultural stewardship and those who take up its cause could become.
WHAT'S THE POINT?
But what's the point of going to the movies? Why should we tolerate exorbitant ticket and concession prices, the lack of etiquette among fellow moviegoers who always believe their indiscretions are exceptional and the possibility that our movie selection may not satisfy our aesthetic or emotional yearnings or those of whom we wish to treat? All for a momentary stay of all the pressures, troubles and urgencies of life beyond the darkened theater?
Because it is a battle and it always has been. A battle to care for something one or more human beings have crafted in order to squeeze a sliver of truth, beauty and/or moral refinement out of our sordid and fundamentally mysterious existences. That's why we put up with it. That's why we tolerate the soreness of our legs, the strain on our bladders and the often questionable skill of the filmmakers who've offered up their work to our highly discerning taste. Many of us persist in these auditoriums out of sacrificial duty to a cause greater than our immediate flesh and nerve. It is never easy to focus for hours at a time on a narrative thread or other offered extremity of mimetic construction but it's what holds together the very foundation of culture and civilization. Patience, restraint and a touch of stoic character. It's all that holds our puny social order together. Without this discipline and durability, we are vulnerable and compromised.
EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES
So, Cosford Cinema is where I've chosen to regularly practice this form of viewerly asceticism. And the rewards have been rich and varied. From a vast showcase of UM's own student films to retrospectives of mainstream directors' catalogs to a thorough roll call of the global critical community's top favorites to new 4K masters of modern classics to selects from luminaries of the local community (where I met Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and gifted her a copy of my book) to advance screenings of hotly anticipated titles to simply works selected on account of seasonal appeal or the theater manager's plain and simple preference, Cosford has offered an embarrassment of riches to those who've taken up the aforesaid challenge to engage with one of the most ennobling pursuits of our often clumsy, wayward species. And a fair amount of the time, the screenings offer opportunities to hear directly from the filmmakers involved or their loved ones, as in the case of a past Q&A with local documentarian Billy Corben following a screening of one of his latest films or a live, in-theater Zoom call with the wife of Gene Kelly after a presentation of the 1952 musical Singing in the Rain.
Moreover, Rene furnishes all of his revivalist weekend screenings with the finest, most informed curation you're likely to find in all of South Florida. Throwing his weight into the job as a seasoned film critic who's shared ample time, space and words with some of the most legendary filmmakers in the North American film industry, Rene lends a wealth of insider insight and perspective into his introductory remarks, complete with a comprehensive slide presentation. And following screenings, Rene is routinely on-hand to kick-off and guide a discussion with attendees about the merits and context of a given classic film or more contemporary offering. But there's no limit to the range of discussion and everyone is always encouraged to participate, making it a refreshingly civic and democratic event.
EARLIEST ATTENDANCE
Nearly two decades before Rene's management of the theater, there had existed an air of intelligent, counter-cultural programming at Cosford that appealed to many discerning locals in an environment of increasing media company consolidation, including a dear high school classmate of mine who often encouraged my attendance at the theater. However, my history with the venue as a patron commenced some time after my friend's imploring, when my parents, who raised my siblings and me in a household where trips to the local cineplex were extremely rare yet highly desired, assented to my burgeoning and rapacious adolescent interest in filmmaking by encouraging me to attend an exhibit of short films from UM's graduating film students. I remember sitting in the rearmost row with my parents and later feeling more than cocky in asserting my thoughts about the perceived strengths and weaknesses (mostly weaknesses) of the work on the car ride back from the event.
LIFE SUPPORT
After a traumatic mental health-related experience as a film student at University of Central Florida, I returned to Miami in the late 2000s and reconstituted myself with the help of association and involvement with a community of film students at UM. Consequently, I would attend their film program's exclusive Canes Film Festival at Cosford to see the results of the hard work applied throughout their semesters, some of which I had a hand in. It was here that a familiar impulse to put my patience and focus to the test by watching hours' worth of student work from these fellow aspiring filmmakers. I attended several editions of the film festival before the demands of my own personal filmmaking picked up again along with the responsibilities of my return to the university setting at Florida International University as a Communication Arts major. Experiencing a personal renaissance in the mid-to-late 2010s, my development as a filmmaker - and one beginning to produce his own feature films - would soon land me in the good graces of a veteran film critic with a fairly new gig in town.
FEW LOYALTIES
I don't recall under what circumstances we became Facebook friends but it's not uncommon to send/receive friend requests to/from those within the local film community, who share many mutual contacts and are rather extroverted online about a common affinity. Either way, I came to know that Rene Rodriguez was a well-regarded film critic who'd recently been hired as theater manager at Cosford in the early 2020s. This information became of particular interest when I was in search of a theater venue to host the first public screening of my 2nd feature film State v. Unknown which I had produced throughout the dénouement of the global COVID-19 pandemic and completed in the spring of 2022. So, I reached out. Thankfully, Rene responded with a welcome promptness, open-armed about the prospect of screening my film at Cosford and we set to meet some time later at the theater to ingest my film into the theater's DCP projection system.
When I arrived on the patio just outside of the auditorium, I believe my characteristic earliness caught Rene off-guard. He was shirtless, perspiring and preoccupied with moving some outside furniture into place. And so, my first impression of Rene was a man who put his body and sweat into the job - quite literally. Our ensuing interactions were the most cordial and amiable. Whether he mentioned the length of his film critic tenure at Miami Herald (33 years!) made no difference to me. Rene was, at once, a prepared, thorough, sincere, caring and extremely intelligent man to whom I would always listen first and let guide the direction of every interaction from then on. We became fairly fast friends that day and my fondness for Rene as a writer, cinephile and mentor has only accumulated since the start of my association with him. To say the least, our coordination and execution of my 2nd feature's screening went off without a hitch and we remained in regular contact as I made good on my promised patronage at Cosford. When Rene would playfully deride my peculiar vow, I would respond that I possessed "few loyalties." Rene and Cosford among them.
BASIC INFORMATION
4K digital projection.
7.1 Dolby Digital sound.
70-square-foot screen.
240-seat auditorium.
The Bill Cosford Cinema is the largest, single-screen theatrical venue in all of Miami. You can find its schedule of programming at www.cosfordcinema.com. Come on down sometime!
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