Sometimes, art is a fight. Culture is a reason to work hard, but for many, commerce is why they get out of bed. Commerce explains gentrification (ahem, Churchill’s) and the state doing away with tax breaks for filmmaking (no real explanation). But artists survive and, in some cases, thrive when leaning on community. If there’s no one else, there is still us.

Here is where we start, with the second annual Subculture Film Fest set to take place Oct. 20-22 in and around West Palm Beach. The festival will screen independent films from South Florida and parts beyond, and host industry panels, filmmaker conversations and technical workshops over three days of diverse voices in cinema.

PureHoney spoke with co-founder and co-director José Jesús Zaragoza’s about filmmaking in Florida and Subculture as “a filmmaker’s festival.”

This is year two. Tell me a bit about how it started.  

Subculture Film Fest developed as an idea between myself and Rodney Mayo after many conversations about independent filmmaking in South Florida. We are both huge fans of documentary filmmaking, and an initial idea to have a smaller, more intimate film club turned into an all-out film fest concept. Our first event, in March of 2022, demonstrated how much the West Palm Beach community was hungry for a cultural event centered around cinema.

I think the real work, however, has taken place within the past year, with the involvement of Noelia Solange, Subculture Film Fest co-director, who spent many years helping to organize the Miami Film Festival. Noelia has been an invaluable addition and has helped elevate our marketing, partnerships, and the execution of this year’s film fest.

Was there any specific prompt to focus on South Florida filmmakers?   

We think so, but that has quickly expanded to include the best of independent cinema. … One of the initial drivers of our film fest was the incredible body of work that seems to be coming out of our region, in particular from directors who have focused their lenses on the more remote areas of our county, such as the Glades area, through documentaries that capture quotidian life as most people in Palm Beach County have never seen.

These films have gone on to win big at major film fests, and we thought our residents deserved to see them, too. Two films that made an impact last year, “The Rabbit Hunt” by Patrick Bresnan and Ivete Lucas, and “Hierophany” by Kevin Contento, are followed up this year with new films from each of those directors that will be screened at our festival, “The Passing” and “From Fish to Moon.”

Does South Florida being a transient place help or hurt filmmaking?  

The fact that our state is in constant flux leads to complex issues, colorful characters, stories, ideas, you name it. We think that leads to more substantive films and a richer well, so to speak, from which to draw.

Tell us about some of the features this year.  

Typically, in a film festival setting, film blocks (a sequence of films within a single programming time) are arranged according to genre. We’ve kind of turned that on its head and programmed our films according to a theme and the way the collection of films inspires a feeling. … This made programming a bit more of a challenge, but it was well worth it in the end. We’re excited to see how the audience responds to this less traditional format.

South Florida is not always the most supportive place for art. Would you say community (over, say, the industry in California) drives the local filmmaking economy? Is it essentially a labor of love here?

 “Moonlight” proved that Florida filmmaking is more than just a labor of love. But, in general, we don’t disagree with you. We think that certainly a lot of filmmakers are doggedly pursuing their craft, and we’re seeing the most beautiful point within that, the beginning. So much struggle goes into that, but also discovery and the realization of each person’s voice, and voices, within that journey.

Subculture Film Fest opens at the Norton Museum on Oct. 20, followed by festival days at Gstar Studios on Saturday, Oct. 21, and at The Peach on Oct. 22. instagram.com/subculturefilmfest GET TICKETS ~ Tim Moffatt