A buzz is growing over “Cocaine Cowboys“, a new documentary due to be released later this year that explores how cocaine and 1980s Miami became inextricably linked in the public’s mind. In contrast to the little seen but universally panned 1979 Andy Warhol starrer of the same name, this film made by the Miami-based team of director Billy Corben and producer Alfred Spellman has been variously described as “often hilarious, exuberant“, “riveting” and “pulse-pounding“.
In an interview with the Miami New Times [pdf], the 27-year-old Spellman explains that they “started with the proposition that modern Miami was built on the cocaine industry” and then went on to explore and conclude that this was indeed the case. Two years in the making, their film details - using archival footage and interviews with some of the drug criminals, cops and prosecutors involved - how the cocaine business worked, the huge amounts of money that flowed as a result and the attending violence that caused the city to go through a “monumental change”. It premiered at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival in April. A distribution deal has apparently been struck with Magnolia Pictures.
For more on the two filmmakers and their documentary, OceanDrive.com has just done a feature on them. The official website isn’t quite ready, so in the meantime check out the teaser site.