El Paso native and recent Academy Award nominee Germaine Franco will appear at the El Paso Community Foundation’s 15th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival. The Irvin High School and Rice University graduate received her Oscar nominated for Encanto, for which she wrote the score. Franco made history this year as the first woman to score a Disney animated feature film and is the first woman of color to receive an Oscar nomination for best original score.
Franco will appear with Encanto at 7 p.m. Saturday, July 30 in the Plaza Theatre. Tickets are $10, on sale at Ticketmaster.com and the Plaza Theatre Box Office.
The former El Paso Youth Symphony Orchestra percussionist is a composer, producer, and arranger with a long list of accomplishments. In addition to her Oscar nomination, Germaine’s Encanto score was nominated for a Golden Globe, received a Society for Composers and Lyricists Award for Best Original Score, an Annie Award for best music in an animated feature, and a Variety Artisan Award.
She co-wrote and produced five of six original songs in Disney’s 2017 hit Coco, including Un Poco Loco and Proud Corazon. She wrote the score for the video game Kung Fu Panda Land of Awesomeness and Kung Fu Panda: The Emperor’s Quest, theme park attractions that play daily at Universal Beijing Resort and Universal Studios Hollywood.
She scored the Netflix films Work It, The Sleepover and Someone Great, cowrote and produced the main title theme song for Nickelodeon’s The Casagrandes, and scored the movies Little, Dora and the Lost City of Gold, Tag, and Dope, among others.
Franco believes strongly in music education and equity in her field. She is on the Advisory Board for Women in Media and The Neighborhood Music School. In 2018, Univision celebrated her work as one of “15 Latinas Who Are Changing the World as We Know It.” Her work is heard in concert halls around the world.
Germaine Franco joins a growing list of special guests for this year’s Plaza Classic Film Festival, including Rita Moreno, El Paso native F. Murray Abraham, and husband-and-wife filmmakers Cristina Ibarra, an El Paso native, and Alex Rivera. Among this year’s titles are Singin’ in the Rain, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Amadeus, Scarface, Thelma & Louise, Lawrence of Arabia, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Superman, and Sleepless in Seattle.
Individual tickets are on sale at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster.com. Passes are on sale at plazaclassic.com/tickets or by phone, 915-533-4020.
