Miami native Juan Barquin (they/them) has been a writer, curator, and filmmaker in South Florida for the past decade. They aspire to be Bridget Jones.
Specializing in queer art and animation, their cultural criticism and film analysis has been published in Miami New Times, Little White Lies, AV Club, Into, and Reverse Shot, among many others. Their criticism and research has led to being published in Little White Lies magazine and the Museum of the Moving Image’s Reverse Shot: Twenty Years of Film Criticism in Four Movements, as well as being cited in and interviewed for various other books. As of 2024, they are the chair of the Florida Film Critics Circle. Their writing work also extends into Spanish to English translations, a skill they developed thanks to their mother’s skill at the same profession.
Their programming work began alongside creative partner Trae DeLellis as the duo behind Flaming Classics, an award winning film program that served to entertain and educate through film screenings, original critical essays, filmmaker conversations, and drag performances that reinterpreted the films. Their short film and programming work has also been featured at numerous cinemas and museums in the United States and locally in South Florida. Alongside their creative partner, they have collectively won over $100,000 in grant funding that has been redistributed to queer writers, performers, artists, and filmmakers.
In recent years, Juan has also programmed and projected 16mm film prints alongside the Miami-Dade Public Library and other local organizations. They have also built a collection of prints that are available for rental and screening, with some of them having travelled and shown in Miami, Cambridge, and New York.
Juan Barquin 