Miami, FL (Feb. 17, 2023) – Three-time Academy Award-winning, Grammy-nominated, and Emmy-winning composer Nicholas Britell will receive Miami Dade College’s (MDC) acclaimed Miami Film Festival’s (MFF) Art of Light (Composer) Award, presented by Alacran Group. Britell will also be attending the Miami Film Festival for Benjamin Millepied’s Carmen. Britell served as an executive producer on Carmen, and created an original score, and co-wrote a number of original songs and dances. The award presentation will take place on March 8 during the 40th edition of the Festival, which runs from March 3-12, 2023.
Britell is known for his critically acclaimed scores on feature films, including Academy Award winner Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Big Short and the Academy Award nominated Don’t Look Up. His upcoming projects include Succession Season 4, which debuts March 26; Carmen opens on April 21; and Barry Jenkins’ Mufasa: The Lion King in 2024.
The Festival’s Art of Light Award is presented to cinematic artists whose exemplary work shines new wonders on the continuing evolution of motion pictures. The 2022 honoree was The White Lotus composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer.
“Music is what brings a film to life, intensifying the emotions that the audience can feel, and Nicholas Britell’s scores remind us just how essential music is to the telling of a story,” said Miami Film Festival Programming Director Lauren Cohen. “We are thrilled to be able to present him with our Art of Light (Composer) Award at the 2023 Miami Film Festival.”
Britell is known for his critically acclaimed scores, including those for Adam McKay’s 2021 Don’t Look Up, Barry Jenkins’ 2018 If Beale Street Could Talk, and Jenkins’ 2017 Academy Award Best Picture winner Moonlight. Britell received Academy Award nominations for those three films as well as BAFTA and Critics Choice nominations for Don’t Look Up and If Beale Street Could Talk. He received Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice nominations, as well as the 2016 Hollywood Music in Media Award, for Best Original Score (Dramatic Feature) for Moonlight. The year prior, he wrote the score for Adam McKay’s The Big Short, which marked the start of his collaboration with the Academy Award winning writer-director-producer. In 2018, he wrote the score for McKay’s Vice, starring Christian Bale and Amy Adams. Britell has the distinction of winning Film Composer of the Year, Television Composer of the Year, and Discovery of the Year, as well as Best Original Song Written for a Film at the World Soundtrack Awards, and an SCL award for Outstanding Original Song for a Comedy for “Just Look Up” on behalf of Don’t Look Up all within the past 5 years. Britell is also the mastermind behind some of TV’s most beloved scores, notably the Succession Main Title Theme, which won him an Emmy and was dubbed “the definitive TV Theme of the 21st Century” by The Guardian. He received a Grammy nomination in 2022 for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media. Continuing his work on the show over the following seasons, Britell received Emmy nominations for both his Season 2 and 3 scores, and is currently scoring Season 4. Other television scores he has composed include his Emmy-nominated score for Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad and the score for HBO’s Winning Time which he co-composed with Grammy-winning artist Robert Glasper. His critically acclaimed score for Lucasfilm’s Star Wars series Andor premiered September 2022 which earned him an SCL nomination for Outstanding Score for a Television Production.
Alacran Group, sponsor of the Festival’s 2023 Art of Light (Composer) Award, is a multi-faceted entertainment company consisting of music label Alacran Records, state-of-the-art recording and live streaming facilities Alacran Studios in Miami, and film production company Alacran Pictures.
The Festival will open with Somewhere in Queens, directed by comedian and actor Ray Romano, and close with The Lost King, directed by Stephen Frears on Saturday, March 11. Featuring a dozen World Premieres, three North American Premieres, eight US Premieres, and 14 East Coast Premieres, the 2023 Festival will celebrate more than 140 feature narratives, documentaries and short films of all genres, from over 30 countries worldwide. View the complete program at www.miamifilmfestival.com.
About Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival
Celebrating cinema in two annual events, Miami Film Festival (40th annual edition March 3-12, 2023) and Miami Film Festival GEMS (November 2023), Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival is considered the preeminent film festival for showcasing Ibero-American cinema in the U.S., and a major launch pad for all international and documentary cinema. The annual Festival welcomes more than 45,000 audience members and more than 400 filmmakers, producers, talent and industry professionals. It is the only major festival housed within a college or university. In the last five years, the Festival has screened films from more than 60 countries, including 300 World, International, North American, U.S. and East Coast Premieres. Major sponsors of Miami Film Festival GEMS include Knight Foundation, Telemundo, American Airlines, Estrella Damm, Telemundo, NBC6 and Miami-Dade County. The Festival also offers unparalleled educational opportunities to film students and the community at large. For more information, visit miamifilmfestival.com or call 305-237-FILM (3456).
# # #
MDC’s Miami Film Festival Media Relations Contacts
NEW YORK / LOS ANGELES / TRADE:
Steven Wilson, Scenario PR | (310) 497-4951 | steven.wilson@scenariopr.com
Kylie Elliot, Scenario PR | kylie.elliot@scenariopr.com
MIAMI:
Rachel Pinzur, Pinzur Communications | (305) 725-2875 | Rachel@PinzurPR.com
Andrea Salazar, Pinzur Communications | (954) 756-0652 | andrea@PinzurPR.com