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This was the year of Hurricane Wilma.

On October 24th one week into the fest, Hurricane Wilma slammed into Fort Lauderdale. On Sunday, the night before, we concluded our last screening of the night at 9pm. As the audience left Cinema Paradiso, the wind was howling through the streets. Little did we know, in less than eight hours, half of the School Board building would be in our Courtyard. Our stained glass windows knocked out and torrents of rain poured over the projector, sound board and festival 35mm films. All infrastructure was knocked out in east Ft Lauderdale and would remain that way for most for at least eight days.

However, by Friday morning power was restored to Cinema Paradiso By 6pm that evening, we were showing films. People flocked to CP for escape, air conditioning, a cold bottle of water or a beer, and yes, even hot showers. Halloween fell exactly one week after Wilma knocked out the city. FLIFF created a Haunted House, a pumpkin patch, gave free hors drawn hayrides along the river, held scream & costume contests onstage, showed Halloween films and cartoons for kids…and somehow, over 600 children and their parents found their way to our doors that evening, and FLIFF, without one major corporate sponsor, literally saved Halloween for those families with no where to go that dark, humid evening in October.