[narrator] This time on filmmaker.

[narrator] This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, on the web at arts.gov.

And by Oolite Arts, what Miami is made of.

[andres] Hi, my name is Andr s rias.

I am the writer and director of my thriller short film titled "Synchronic.'

A struggling couple take their daughter Christmas shopping, only to discover that they become a part of a terrorist attack.

[woman] Right.

[charlie] We should have left two weeks ago.

[colleen] No kidding!

Because this is not the I don't have to be here anymore.

[charlie] You're really doing this again?

Colleen!

[colleen] No, Charlie, you are doing this again.

Wow.

[phillipa] Mommy, look, it's snowing.

I know baby!

I know is snowing!

[charlie] I hear you!

Look, Please do me a favor and make sure you have your phone on you.

It's crazy in there.

[bearded man] Excuse me, I should have... [phillipa] Mommy look at on the color on his watch.

[colleen] Well, we shouldn't be pointing young lady.

It's disrespectful.

[bearded man] I don't mind if she points.

[phillipa] Daddy does it.

[colleen] Well, because Daddy's rude.

Ha.

I, I'm sorry.

Do I know you?

You seem familiar.

[bearded man] You know it's, it's funny.

I was just thinking the same thing.

[coleen] Maybe in another life.

[bearded man] Merry Christmas.

[phillipa] Merry Christmas.

[charlie] Colleen!

Earth to Colleen!

[colleen] What?

[charlie] Your phone.

[colleen] Oh, that's one.

[charlie] Yeah.

Come on.

Colleen, wait!

What is that even supposed to mean?

[phillipa] Christmas together.

[employee] Aisle six in the back.

Happy holidays.

Welcome to Jojo's.

[colleen] Where could we find the Christmas specials?

[employee] Aisle 12 next to the clearance items.

[colleen] Thank you.

[phillipa] Mommy, his watch is red, too.

[colleen] Huh!

Latest gadgets?

[employee] It is, ma'am, I had to wait eight hours in line for it.

[colleen] Sounds exhausting.

Aisle 12, you said?

[employee] That's right, ma'am.

[phillipa] Merry Christmas.

[employee] Merry Christmas to you, too.

[charlie] God, I hate Christmas.

[bearded man] Excuse me [colleen] You again!

[bearded man] What?

[colleen] From another life?

[phillipa] Where's your watch?

[bearded man] What watch?

[phillipa] Your red watch.

[colleen] That was rude.

[phillipa] Just like Daddy.

[charlie] Go!

[colleen] What do you think?

Grandpa plays dress up with us?

Perhaps you're right.

Pop pop's too angry for dress up.

[little girl] Please.

Can I have her?

Please, mom?

[little girl] Please!

Please mama!

[woman] Yes, baby.

[little girl] Yes!

[colleen] Yes baby?

Can I have a toy?

Yeah.

Just don't go too far.

Oh my god.

Baby, what do you think of this color?

Phillipa.

Phillipa!

Excuse me.

Have you seen a little brown haired girl about wee tall?

No, sorry.

Philippa.

Wow.

About fucking time.

Jesus.

Phillapa!

Phillapa, come, come to mommy.

Phillapa, please.

Phillapa, come to mommy right now!

Mommy, look.

It is him!

His watch mommy, his watch!

Colleen!

Run!

We've got to go!

All right, Here we go everyone.

Everyone out.

Everyone out.

Stay safe.

Here we go.

[charlie] Hey!

My wife and daughter are in there!

[employee] I understand.

They're fine.

Colleen and Philippa are fine.

[charlie] You don't understand... What'd you say?

[employee] You gotta go.

They're waiting for you outside.

[colleen] What are you talking?

Who's waiting for us.

[charlie] Where did you get that watch?

[colleen] How do you know our names?

[employee] No time for questions!

I'm my way to target.

Colleen and the child are safe.

[voice over radio] Colleen and the child are safe.

Making their way to you now.

[cop] She can explain.

Who was that?

What are you doing with my family?

[cop] You just can't go in there right now [charlie] Step aside!

I'm going in.

[cop] This isn't part of the plan [cop] Once at a time [cop] Inaudible [cop] Check me in.

[cop 1] What are you doing?

[cop 2] What you should have done.

[charlie] Colleen!

[colleen] Charlie!

[charlie] Colleen!

Colleen!

[andres] It would have to be how we bonded everyone, casting crew.

We shot a film that takes place in real time in, in one location.

Everyone were just team players to the very end.

So yeah, that was definitely special and bittersweet by the end of the shoot.

Without a doubt.

From the moment that I wrote the script to the very end of post production, this was done entirely in South Florida.

In Miami.

Especially principle photography, which has been the highlight 'cuz most people don't think that we shot in Miami.

But we actually, we actually did.

I would say Mauricio Trabanino, that is our composer.

Because if you strip the music away from the film it doesn't pack the extra punch that it is meant to deliver.

Everyone is, is following a singular vision of the script.

And they can still be creative and deliver their own you know, uniqueness, while still also focusing on us all delivering the same exact narrative and the same color palette, the same tone.

Hey everybody, I'm Guillermo Alfonso.

I'm the director of Croqueta Nation.

And my film is about Croquetas.

Who doesn't love Croquetas?

Only difference is ours is the world's longest.

Ya tu sabes, Croqueta Nation.

Ah, Miami, the magic city.

Miami's known for its beaches, weather, and nightlife.

But there's a side of Miami that's only known to the locals.

The culinary capital of the tropics.

One little treasure we have down here is the croqueta.

So how do we describe a croqueta to someone who's never had one?

Hmm.

It's like a Hispanic chicken nugget [paola jardine] Little mini brown goldish beauty.

[sofla] I know that they roll 'em in bread crumbs Fry 'em and then they put [???]

on top of them [emilio estefan] You cannot describe them.

It's like describing sex.

How you gonna describe sex?

[dana brooke] The moment you take a bite out of it, your taste buds explode.

[chef juan chipoco] La croqueta is es algo jammy algo que no [danella lavine cava] Got a little garlic.

Garlic, I think important, right?

[chef frankie] Coated in breadcrumbs and fried till it's golden.

[uly 'the monster diaz] The dash of hot sauce maybe mixed that together.

Fire [enrique santos] Croqueta's unite people.

Have you seen elections in Day County?

You know how the resolved?

Thanks to croquetas [francis suarez] It's Small, you know, and it's easy to eat without getting messy.

[sweet baby fred] If I had to describe a croqueta to somebody has never had it before: it's like if you were on a cloud and Jesus was rubbing your belly.

But it's just a fried hard belly.

[narrator] The croqueta: Unifier of cultures rich in tradition.

Loved by all peoples.

But no one loves Croquetas more than this man.

His love of fried food has taken him beyond the limits of crazy.

But who is he?

Who is this man?

Who is the king of the Croqueta?

[carlos] Hi, my name is Carlos Gaziantep.

I'm CEO for Sergio's family restaurants I am third generation running our small family business.

Started by my grandmother and my mother over 45 years ago.

So Croquetas originated in France and originated about 1898, using scraps of potato that they would use a bechamel sauce and lightly breaded.

And it became this huge phenomenon hit.

Little by little chefs were learning that croquetas can be used as ways to recycle food, right?

It's a transformation that chefs and consumers loved because it had a crispy outside and a creamy inside which goes down to the phrases.

Everything tastes good, fried.

[carlos] So we were having fun this year.

We challenged our team to do Croquetas to Mars.

So we did these recipes.

You know, Elon Musk was talking about going to outer space, Jeff Bezos.

And we thought, you know what'd be cool is already talk about what kind of recipes could there be in Mars made like Croquetas.

So we did that and we presented to the mayor and I think Bacardi saw it.

And they sent us a letter saying Congratulations.

But they also had fun with us saying what else are you gonna do?

The world's longest croqueta?

And that kind of inspired us to say, why not?

[narrator] This is a story of passion and determination.

One man's journey against all odds.

Is he mad or is he genius?

[carlos] Our next step after getting the letter from Bacardi was to talk to our team.

Because I needed the entire team to buy in to this vision.

I could come up with the key takeaways for each category but at the end of the day it takes a village right to take it to the finish line.

And the goal is, is as a coach and as a leader is to give you the frameworks.

And that's what I did with our team is sit 'em down, talking to 'em saying This is the vision, this is how we're gonna do it.

But we all need to come together in such a tight deadline talking about two weeks to make this happen.

[1st female staff] I mean, honestly, it sounds impossible.

I mean anything is possible in our team, but it's it's gonna be tough for us.

[2nd female staff]Okay?

Carlos is crazy.

He wants me to somehow magically put together a burner long enough to fry a six foot croqueta.

They don't even make those.

[male team member] So according to Carlos the world's longest croqueta is four feet 11.

And it was spin in the Netherlands out of potatoes.

And that's not even a croquta.

They call it a croquet.

So us coming in with a six foot croqueta is gonna establish us in the world as the world's longest croqueta.

[narrator] Behold!

The world's longest croquetas Yes, the challenges are gonna be intense.

How do we make it edible for people can eat it.

Two, how do we transport this?

How do we make it hand rolled that it doesn't break during that day?

What about cooking a fryer custom fryer to cook the world's longest coqueta?

Actually now thinking about it, I think I may have someone Andy.

Andy, let me reach out to these people.

Hello?

Carlos!

[carlos] Well first of all, we unveiled the fryer, which is amazing.

This is like our Frankenstein fryer.

It's exactly how I envisioned it.

Turkey burners all set up, welded, movable baskets.

It was really a, a great work of art.

Something that is amazing to see from your vision to to reality.

So that was a great part.

We've had some setback backs.

[carlos] What do we got?

[man] Boss We're at 45 degrees.

[carlos] That's not gonna do it.

That's not edible.

One of the setbacks is, is that we don't have temperature gauges.

This is not a regular fryer that you can put 350 set it, forget it, right?

We put the croqueta in and basically it cooked on the outside.

On the inside it was frozen, really raw on the inside.

That's not gonna cut it.

The goal here is to make an edible croqueta.

All right team, we know the first one we just overcooked to a high of a temperature and it was frozen on the inside.

This is our second attempt.

Let's see how it goes.

We lower the temperature down, dog will get that side Like this.

Grab this.

Lets see what happens.

So this is about the right color that we want.

Now we'll measure inside and we'll see how many hours will take under the heat lamp based on what what we think can, can make it work.

Tell what I'm doing guys.

speaking Spanish Now I gotta deal with the construction issues and see how that's going.

[narrator] Meanwhile, everywhere in Miami people are enjoying croquetas.

no matter what type you like there's one for everybody's taste buds.

Croqueta day is right around the corner and the people are talking.

But what are they saying?

What are they talking about?

How long do you think the longest croqueta will be?

Hmm?

How they gonna fry this thing?

If you guess the actual length of the croqueta whoever gets closest to it, I'm gonna hook you up with VIP passes for croqueta day.

844.

Yes, Enrique?

how big is this thing gonna be?

I don't know.

[chef allen susser] So I'm a chef and I get most of the fryers are probably about 12 to 16 inches, you know long in the depth of the, so I got, you know, the longest probably about 18 inches.

[may alvarez] How long is the longest croqueta?

I have no clue.

Maybe six inches?

[young boy] Seven inches.

[uly "the monster" diaz] I don't know.

I'd say two, three feet maybe?

And I think that's kind of pushing it.

[francis suarez] Wow, that's a great question.

I have never really pondered that philosophical thought.

You know, how long is the world's longest croqueta?

But I can tell you that it will be the second longest after Carlos is done with the competition!

Time.

The unstoppable force that separates the boys from the men.

Time is our one true enemy always knocking at our door.

How much space you need?

We don't have a roof yet as tomorrow.

So I mean...

Please, I guess you want to come by tomorrow to look at this real quick?

Okay, we're trying to get all this done.

Look, look, take a look.

Look at the stress in this men's face.

Yeah, this is, we got a lot of people coming tomorrow.

Every year.

So we gotta have, we gotta have all this closed up and you know, we don't know if it'll rain.

So the question is, people don't show up; Once it rains, people don't show up, you know?

in terms of construction, so, you're done.

So we're really, we're putting into the last, last second.

So hold on a second.

We just gotta keep doing what we've gotta do.

Right There's nothing else to do.

Back to work.

[carlos] Today's been crazy.

The weather has not cooperated with us all day.

So it's been a, a mission basically to go ahead and get this going and make sure that everything's going to plan.

And we're about 45 minutes out and it's still raining outside, so.

[carlos] So, so the commissioner, the mayor, this is, we're gonna get; I'm gonna get you one on each side [female] Perfect [carlos] So you can help him [female] Perfect, perfect, perfect.

You know you're gonna have someone here, you're just kinda like next door to see it.

This is a little bit unique way of cooking because it's all by eyesight and there's no way to control temperatures.

And that's the croquetas [female bystander] Oh my God!

We are about to make history!

We're gonna make the world's largest croqueta!

and it's going be delicious!

and we are going to lightly put it down.

[woman off screen] Alright, here we go.

Oh my gosh [man] Woo!

Has not broken.

It has not broken, There's a little bit of a break there's a little bit of a break stand.

We don't want it to break.

[narrator] Behold, I present to you the brainchild of a genius madman; The titan of fried food.

But what will the people say?

Gail Hutton oddessy.

[carlos] You know, I don't know many proclaimed holidays that Day County and Broward County share, but they do share Croqueta Day.

Although we all might have a different opinion on who croquetas are better or the best.

What we all can say is that we all love croquetas.

They say it was impossible.

They said we were mad.

But what they don't know is that Miami never backs down.

Yeah We're the epicenter for croquetas in the United States.

And that's why we created this theme concept called Croqueta Nation.

Cuz all of you are part of Croqueta the Nation.

[narrator] What will it taste like?

Will they love it or was this all in vain?

You decide?

Cheers!

Cheers!

Everyone lets go!

Let's go!

Yeah.

[interviewer] Only in Dade?

What do you think [woman off screen] Come on!

[audience member] Only in Dade!

[interviewer] Ate eight, which is the oneliner.

What's the review?

What's the review?

[woman] Oh he's thinking about it!

[only in dade] when you do a croqueta of this size, It is easy to sacrifice quality.

But this croqueta is FIRE!!!!!

[narrator] And after all the sacrifices made and all the records being broken, let us not forget that this was for the people, from the ones eating the croquetas to the ones delivering them nationwide, tally!

Exploring the whole concept of breaking a world record.

When the restaurant told me that this was their plans and they they were gonna do this and I started like asking questions and finding out how they were gonna do it it inspired me to like want to make a story about it.

I'm like, nobody's ever done this before.

You know, this guy was making a six foot croquetta.

How can I not film it?

Kato especially if you're doing a movie about Croquetas you gotta have ?

??

on set.

It's life.

Just the quirkiness of the story itself and the niche aspect of the croquetta, right?

I mean, it doesn't get more Miami more South Florida than a movie, A documentary about the world's longest croquetta.

I mean, come on guys.

Doesn't get more Miami than that.

You know, an average day filming Croquetta Nation was fun.

We were running and gunning and just kind of letting the story unfold on its own and every day was just fun, right?

We started every day with Croquetas and Capicito and and we just filmed and we had fun and we laughed and it was a great time.

And I think that that comes across on the, on the movie.

[female narrator] This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts on the web at arts.gov.

and by Oolite Arts, what Miami is made of.