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One of the showcased feature films at this year’s Phoenix Film Festival puts ganja and a group of aging smugglers from Florida on the silver screen.
In the 1970s, South Florida fishing boats were infamous for hauling in “square grouper,” and catching a square grouper meant catching a boatload of pot smuggling cash.
Square Grouper:The Godfathers of Ganja, which screens again at Harkins Scottsdale 101 in Scottsdale Tuesday night, chronicles three major smuggling operations that were busted during the era.
Miami based director Billy Corben‘s examined the drug industry in his previous documentaries, Cocaine Cowboys (2006) and Cocaine Cowboys 2 (2008).
For Square Grouper (2011), Corben uses interviews with the aging outlaws including and the FBI agents who busted them, as well as news footage from the era to help tell this story about a time when many Americans believed marijuana would be decriminalized.
Square Grouper screens again on Tuesday, April 5 at 9:10 p.m. at Harkins Scottsdale 101.
Individual screening tickets are available at The Phoenix Film Festival Website.
