Key Biscayne Film Festival

Welcome to the Key Biscayne Film Festival, where we celebrate the cinematic art form, build community and raise awareness for the safekeeping of our marine environment!

The Key Biscayne Film Festival is dedicated to bringing the power of film to our island community by showcasing compelling stories that inspire, uplift and spark meaningful conversations through all formats including documentaries, drama, features, shorts, comedy, and animation. 

2025 Festival Recap

About

The Key Biscayne Film Festival was founded by Maite Garrido Thornton and Isabel Custer Edwards in 2023 to service the community with a high quality cultural event to showcase the cinematic arts.

Directors

Maite Garrido Thornton - Festival Co-Founder & President of the Board

Maite Garrido Thornton has been a Key Biscayne resident for the last 20 years and a Miami native all her life. A Cuban American television journalism producer, Maite started her career at CNN in Washington DC.

Maite went on to produce financial news at CNBC in New York where she helped launch the Faber Report with David Faber Moving back to her hometown Miami in 2001, Maite went on to produce local news first at NBC6 where she worked as a line producer and health producer.

She then went on to CBS 4 news where she worked alongside Lisa Petrillo in special projects producing entertainment news. While at CBS 4 Maite was awarded a Suncoast Emmy award for her work with Lisa. Her love of movies and the island inspired her for many years to create a local film festival.

Isabel Custer - Festival Co-Founder & Executive Director

A Miami native, Isabel grew up visiting her friends & family on Key Biscayne. Her studies include a Bachelor’s in Film Production from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, a Masters in Film from La Sorbonne and a Video Portfolio degree from Miami Ad School. Upon graduating from Tisch, Isabel managed the production of Jay Martel’s first feature Terrorists, then she worked in documentary films in France and advertising production in Chile.

Isabel has written, directed, edited and produced a feature documentary, short films and music videos featured in various international film festivals. She also writes and composes songs, under the moniker Isabela, widely distributed on digital platforms. Beyond music and film, she has also written two musicals, a book of essays & an as yet unpublished YA Novel. Isabel is a board member of the Miami Film Lab, whose goal it is to help South Florida filmmakers achieve their creative goals. She is currently in post-production for her first narrative feature and lives on Key Biscayne.