Fresh from its Sundance Film Festival debut, El Paso native Iliana Sosa will attend the El Paso premiere screening of her new HBO Original documentary God Save Texas: La Frontera at 7 pm Friday, February 23 in the Philanthropy Theatre in the Plaza Theatre Performing Arts Centre. A Q&A will follow the film.
Admission is FREE. No tickets are required.
The premiere is presented by the El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival and the El Paso Film & Creative Industries Commission.
The 54-minute La Frontera is a personal exploration of how neplanta, a Nahuatl word for the concept of being in between two worlds, characterizes Sosa’s relationship with her Mexican heritage and border hometown of El Paso, and how the city came together and healed after the devastating, racially motivated August 3, 2019 mass shooting there.
“My goal is to introduce the world to the hidden wealth of this borderland — a term that encapsulates diversity and vitality: neplanta,” said Sosa, a filmmaker, assistant professor of film at the University of Texas at Austin and Franklin High School graduate.
La Frontera is the third installment of the God Save Texas trilogy, based on the best-selling book by author Lawrence Wright. The HBO documentary trilogy, executive produced by Texas filmmaker Richard Linklater, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and debuts February 27 on Max. Linklater directed the first episode, God Save Texas: Hometown Prison. Fellow Texan Alex Stapleton directed part two, God Save Texas: The Price of Oil.
Sosa appeared at PCFF 2022 with her documentary What We Leave Behind, which debuted at the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival that year.
Pictured: Iliana Sosa (right) with her mother Maria Elia Sosa in a scene from ‘God Save Texas: La Frontera’
Photo courtesy of HBO
