Miami Film Festival

Comic pulls no punches to get a laugh Whether on stage as a stand-up comic or now with ‘Pollo Punch,’ a first short film in the Miami Film Festival, alumnus Mike Menendez loves to make you laugh.   Michael R. Malone 4-9-2025 This story originally appeared in News@TheU. If Mike Menendez’s first comedy open mic were a boxing match, it would have been an opening round TKO. “I bombed so hard. There was so much silence. I was on stage looking for a life raft, so I [...]

The future of the Fourth Estate Student filmmaker’s world premiere at the Miami Film Festival aspires to rehabilitate journalism as a vital institution of democracy. An newroom image from the documentary, "News Without a Newsroom." Michael R. Malone 4-8-2025 This story originally appeared in News@TheU. Though she’s a relatively young filmmaker, Oana Martisca espouses a self-described “old school” mindset about journalism, one that recognizes the difference between professionally trained and values-imbued news-making and the amateurish alternatives. That mindset is influenced to a large degree by her experience [...]