The cocaine trade of the 70s and 80s had an indelible impact on contemporary Miami. Smugglers and distributors forever changed a once sleepy retirement community into one of the world’s most glamorous hot spots, the epicentre of a $20 billion annual business fed by Colombia’s Medellin cartel. By the early 80s, Miami’s homicide rate had tripled and made it the murder capital of the country, for which a Time cover story dubbed the city Paradise Lost. Cocaine Cowboys goes on a fast-paced, adrenaline fuelled journey inside the world of the South Florida drug trade and its henchmen known as Cocaine Cowboys. The film explores the business of how cocaine was imported and distributed, the insanely copious amounts of money being made and its impact on the city’s economy, and the violence that consumed the city during this era.With Cocaine Cowboys, award winning filmmaker Billy Corben paints a dazzling portrait of a cultural explosion that still echoes as Hollywood myth. Corben’s first feature Raw Deal: A Question Of Consent, was a sensation at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Composer of the original Miami Vice theme, Jan Hammer, provides the score for Cocaine Cowboys.
Cocaine Cowboys is released by Slingshot Studios November 2007