Since 2010, Jaie Laplante has led MDC’s Miami Film Festival and Tower Theater Miami as Executive Director & Director of Programming, growing the Festival’s international influence and the Tower as one of the USA’s most celebrated independent art cinemas.

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In 2018, Mr. Laplante received the decoration Knight’s Cross of the Order of Isabel la Católica from Felipe VI, King of Spain, for his career work in bringing contemporary Spanish cinema to the state of Florida. In 2017, he was named one of 25 Knight Champions, honoring passionate individuals in Miami who love the arts, by The John S. & James L. Knight Foundation.

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Mr. Laplante has served on numerous international juries and film panels, and written over 400 pieces of analysis and criticism on cinema. In Toronto and Los Angeles in the 1990s, Laplante worked on numerous independent productions and developed screenplays, and received an Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television nomination for co-writing the made-in-Toronto film Sugar.