Pictured: Las Cruces animator Lauren Roman accepts the 2022 Local Flavor Audience Favorite Award from former curators Lucky McKee and Zach Passero.
The El Paso Community Foundation’s Plaza Classic Film Festival is accepting submissions for its Local Flavor showcase of locally made and connected films. This year’s edition includes a new panel of judges and a total of $3,500 in cash prizes.
Local Flavor is open to short and feature-length films of various types. Works-in-progress will not be accepted. Projects must have been completed on or after January 1, 2022 and must be made locally, set locally, or have a connection of some kind to the El Paso-Juarez-Las Cruces area, which should be noted in the entry in the synopsis window.
Entries selected for Local Flavor will be announced in July and screened during the festival.
The showcase will culminate with the sixth annual Local Flavor Awards, which will award $1,500 for First Prize, $1,000 for Second Prize, $750 for Third Prize, and $250 for the Audience Favorite, which will be determined by a live text-to-vote during the showcase. The awards will be announced during the Local Flavor showcase on Sunday, July 30 in the Plaza Theatre.
There is no cost to submit a film. It’s FREE.
Entry deadline is 11:59 p.m. Monday, June 19, 2023. The submission form is below.
This year’s Local Flavor showcase will be curated by El Paso-based, Emmy Award-winning Producer Javier Gonzalez (Funny Pages, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, 2nd Chance, Swallow), whose projects have screened at the Venice, Toronto, Sundance, Cannes, Tribeca and SXSW film festivals; award-winning Las Cruces filmmaker and NMSU Creative Media Institute associate professor Ilana Lapid (Yochi, Red Mesa, La Catrina), whose work has screened at film festivals around the world; and Asia Saucedo, a film aficionado and member of the El Paso Community Foundation staff who is a longtime Plaza Classic Film Festival contributor and member of its program advisory committee.
Local Flavor is a popular component of the Plaza Classic Film Festival, which returns for its 16th year July 20-30, 2023.
Call 915-533-4020 or email local@plazaclassic.com for more information.
