The El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival returns for its 17th year from July 18-July 28 of 2024.
This year’s 16th annual edition was a huge success. We hosted celebrity guests Edward James Olmos (pictured at a private reception for passholders on July 28) and Helen Hunt, and the world premiere of Isaac Artenstein’s The People of the Crossing: The Jews of El Paso. We sold out the I’ll Have What She’s Having Dinner before a screening of When Harry Met Sally. And, by moving ahead of the start of school, we were able to show more children’s movies, many of which sold out or came close to it.
We celebrated El Paso filmmakers Lucky McKee and Zach Passero, as well as Hector Gallardo’s Subharmonic City Productions, the 7th annual Femme Frontera Showcase, documentaries from NMSU’s Gila Film School and handed out more than $4,000 in prize money to local filmmakers and screenwriters in our annual Local Flavor showcase and PCFF Screenwriting Competition.
We watched in amazement as Walt Strony worked his magic on the Wyler Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ accompanying Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill Jr., and as four all-female groups from the first You Rock! Music Camp (aged from 10 to 16) rocked out onstage before a free outdoor showing of School of Rock.
Did you know that we had audience members from more than 60 cities outside of the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez/Las Cruces borderland region? We had visitors from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Austin, New Orleans, Denver, and Seattle.
We thank our passholders, audiences and our sponsors for making the world’s largest classic film festival a truly feel-good event and important part of El Paso’s cultural landscape.
Passes for the 2024 film festival are on sale now. Click here for details.
