Oscars 2017: Moonlight on location in Miami

Moonlight won the Oscar for Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards.

“Miami is inundated with American problems but feels otherworldly because it’s a paradise most of the time,” said Tarell Alvin McCraney, who conceived the story for Moonlight and was an executive producer on the shoot.

“It’s hard to think of our nine-to-five routines when it’s hot and warm with palm trees swaying.

“There’s also something timeless about the city and that’s what Moonlight captures. You experience a cross-section of what Miami truly feels like, without skimping on the fullness of the place.”

Florida does not typically attract high-profile features as the state’s filming incentive programme has been defunded and there is little political will to make more money available.

Stories set in Miami or other parts of Florida usually use different areas of the US as doubles, or even other countries. High-profile recent examples have included drug feature The Infiltrator – starring Bryan Cranston – which largely doubled UK locations for Florida.

Ben Affleck’s gangster feature Live by Night used Brunswick in Georgia as a stand-in for Prohibition-era Ybor City, a district of Tampa.

Florida faces a real challenge sustaining its production industry when better financial support and flexible filming locations are available elsewhere in the country.

Image: David Bornfriend