The seventh annual edition of the binational Oculto Film Fest returns to El Paso’s Philanthropy Theatre (in the Plaza Theatre Performing Arts Centre) on October 24-25.
It features two days of feature and short films from around the world, including director Juan Albarracin’s 2025 Spanish film festival favorite El Instinto and Arturo and Ray Ambriz’s Soy Frankelda, Mexico’s first stop-motion animated film.
Oculto also will feature a panel discussion with some of El Paso’s top filmmakers, including Lucky McKee (May, The Woman, Poker Face), Dakota Thomas (Crawford) and Genaro Limon, and a stop-motion animation discussion by Mexican filmmakers Cecilia Andalón and Rafael Ruiz, whose short film Dolores was recently up for Mexico’s Ariel Award for animated short film.
The program also includes short films made by local filmmakers through Oculto’s 48-hour film challenge, sponsored by the Star Central Studios Learning Center, which is this weekend. Prize-winning films from the competition will be shown during Oculto.
This is the third year that Oculto, an affiliate of the El Paso Community Foundation, will be held in El Paso. It originated in Juárez, where it returns November 1-2.
Tickets for the El Paso screenings are $5 for each event, $15 for a two-day pass, on sale at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster.com.
Here’s the schedule for the El Paso portion of the festival:
Friday, October 24
• 5:30-6 pm — Red Carpet Opening Ceremony, Plaza Theatre entrance. Free
• 6-7:30 pm — 48 Hour short films block, Philanthropy Theatre. $5.
• 8-9:30 pm — El Instinto (Spain), Philanthropy Theatre. $5.
• 10 pm-12 am — Dinner at Mesa St. Grill (entry with screening ticket)
Saturday, October 25
• 3-5 pm — Soy Frankelda, Philanthropy Theatre. $5.
• 5-6 pm — Filmmaker Panel Discussion with Lucky McKee, Genaro Limon, Dakota Thomas, Christopher Velasquez, Nahomi Gomez, and Alfredo Castruita, Philanthropy Theatre. $5.
• 6-7:30 pm — Short Film Block (Bloody Glamping, The Last Word, Simcha, Il Colore dela Notte, Virgin Killer, The Nightmare Catchers), Philanthropy Theatre. $5.
• 7:30-9 pm — Q&A with Mexican animated filmmakers Cecilia Andalón and Rafael Ruiz, Philanthropy Theatre. $5.
• 9 pm-12 am — Closing ceremony, Alcantar Sky Garden (entry with screening ticket).
Information: ocultofilmfest.com.
The Howl of the Furies (El turno de la aullante) took the $1,500 first prize in this year’s eighth annual Local Flavor Showcase and Awards in the El Paso Community Foundation’s Plaza Classic Film Festival on July 27. Local Flavor was sponsored by the El Paso Film and Creative Industries Commission, whose Director Drew Mayer-Oakes presented the awards, and the Texas Film Commission.
About 300 people attended this year’s Local Flavor in the Plaza Theatre. It featured 11 local and locally connected short films, which were chosen by a panel of judges from among nearly 50 submissions. A public reception for the filmmakers followed in the El Paso Community Foundation Room.
Howl was written and directed by Bayron Norman of Torreón, Coahuila, MX. Two UTEP alumni worked on the film — script supervisor Alejandra Lozano and soundtrack vocalist Mar Lozano. The 26-minute film is about a tortured woman who waits to exact revenge on the man who killed her family.
The $1,000 second prize went to El Paso filmmaker Diego Muñoz Holguín for his autobiographical short Sombras Nada Mas, about the trauma of being kidnapped at gunpoint as a youth in Ciudad Juárez. It was a good Plaza Classic for Muñoz, who also was the subject of a sold-out showcase of several of his works on July 24 in the Philanthropy Theatre (Sombras Nada Mas was not part of that program).
There was a two-way tie, a first, for the $750 third prize, with Local Flavor 2021 award winner Celina Galicia and Plaza Classic Film Camp alum Harmony Schlesinger sharing the award.
Galicia’s documentary Ternura Radical dealt with ongoing femicides in Juárez. Ternura Radical is also part of this year’s ninth annual Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase, which played the Philanthropy Theatre on July 26. Schlesinger’s I Like You a Bot is a whimsical short about a well-programmed robot that has difficulties navigating the end of a romantic relationship.
We also had a two-way tie for the $250 Audience Favorite Award, which was determined by an audience text-to-vote procedure. Samuel Thomas Garcia was selected for his witty genre piece Brooklyn Love, which shared the award with Dakota Thomas for the lush, nostalgic Crawford, about the waning days of Joan Crawford’s career.
Garcia, a student at New Mexico State University and Doña Ana Community College, also won the $100 College Film Award for Brooklyn Love, while Hanks High School student Theresita Acosta won the $50 High School Film Award for her sci-fi fantasy The Tooth Fixation.
For the third year, Local Flavor judges were film producer Javier Gonzalez, filmmaker and NMSU associate film professor Ilana Glassco Lapid and Asia Saucedo of the Plaza Classic Film Festival program advisory committee.
Submissions for next year’s Local Flavor will open in March. It’s free to submit. PCFF 2026 will be July 16-26 in and around the Plaza Theatre.
Her Husband’s Trademark is a 1922 silent film starring Gloria Swanson and directed by Sam Wood, which was partially shot in El Paso in 1921.
It debuted in El Paso in 1922 and will “re-premiere” at this year’s Plaza Classic at 1 pm Sunday, July 27 that will feature the performance of a newly commissioned score by El Paso composer Enrique Ponce.
The film is in the archive of the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY. The El Paso Community Foundation, the Plaza Classic Film Festival and Allen Gilmer arranged to have it digitally restored. GEM Laboratory Manager Chris Crouse, who worked on the restoration, will attend the screening.
What follows is an email interview with Eastman’s Anthony LAbbate, preservation manager of the Eastman Museum’s Moving Image Department. You can learn more about Enrique Ponce’s score on Season 4, Episode 1 of the Plaza Classic Podcast.
How did the George Eastman Museum come to acquire the film? GEM acquired the print of Her Husband’s Trademark from Paramount.
From what did you source the restoration? Her Husband’s Trademark was restored from a black and white preservation negative made circa 1970 at the John E. Allen Laboratory. That negative was made from a 1922, tinted, nitrate release print. It was standard practice in the early 1970s to preserve tinted films on black and white stock as there was no way to preserve the tinting other than making a color negative and prints. Because of color film fading issues at that time, it was considered better to make black and white preservation elements.
In what kind of condition was the film? At the time preservation was done in the early 1970s the original nitrate print was beginning to show the early stages of nitrate decomposition. Since then, the nitrate print has decomposed even more. In 1991 the entire reel-3 was destroyed due to decomposition and from then on sections of each reel have been removed because of decomp.
What kind of processes did the restoration entail? Because the preservation negative was made before any of the nitrate print had decomposing sections removed it was the element we used for scanning. What was left of the original 1922 nitrate print was used as a reference for grading the new scan and as a color reference for the tinting. Once the film was scanned at 4K, it went through digital restoration where all age-related wear was removed, such as dirt and dust spots, scratches and tears.
Anything else you want to add? Until preservation was done in the early 1970s, the nitrate print of Her Husband’s Trademark was the only known element to exist. And until this collaboration with the Plaza Classic Film Festival the only copies of the film were black and white. Now for the first time in 103 years Her Husband’s Trademark is available in a version that is very close to the way audiences saw the film back in 1922.
Due the threat of severe weather, we have decided to cancel tonight’s screening of National Velvet at the Plaza Hotel.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we do not want to put anyone in danger.
If you purchased a ticket to the movie, you will receive a refund.
If you prefer, you may consider the purchase a donation to the El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival.
Ticket purchasers will receive an email notice to this effect.
Send inquiries to info@plazaclassic.com.
Eleven films were selected for this year’s Local Flavor Showcase and Awards in the 18th annual El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival. They screen at 3:30 pm Sunday, July 27 in the Plaza Theatre. More than $3,500 in cash awards will be announced at the end of the program, including an audience favorite selected via text vote.
Tickets are $6 at the Plaza Theatre Box Office (no service charges) and Ticketmaster.com (with service charges). A free, public reception for the filmmakers will follow at 5:30 pm in the El Paso Community Foundation’s Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon.
Local Flavor is generously sponsored by the El Paso Film and Creative Industries Commission and the Texas Film Commission.
The selections are:
• Brooklyn Love (comedy), Samuel Thomas Garcia, El Paso, TX
• Crawford (drama), Dakota Thomas, El Paso, TX
• The Howl of the Furies (drama), Bayron Norman, Torreon, Coahuila, MX
• I Like You a Bot (comedy/drama), Harmony Schlesinger, El Paso, TX
• Light! (drama), Ulises Córdova, El Paso, TX
• Luna Llena (music video), Ryan Riddle, Albuquerque, NM
• Snapshots of Resilience (documentary), Viridiana Villa, El Paso, TX
• Sombras Nada Mas (documentary), Diego Munoz Holguin, El Paso, TX
• Ternura Radical (documentary), Celina Galicia, El Paso, TX
• The Tooth Fixation (comedy), Theresita Acosta, El Paso, TX
• Who’s Afraid? (experimental), Sigi Trevizo, Las Cruces, NM
The 18th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival is July 17-27 in and around the Plaza Theatre. Tickets are on sale at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster. Passes are on sale at plazaclassic.com/tickets. The Plaza Theatre has a clear bag/cashless policy. Go to elpasolive.com for details.
