Academy Award, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-nominated writer, director, and producer Gregory Nava will appear at the 19th annual El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival, which runs July 16-26 in and around the historic Plaza Theatre in downtown El Paso.
The trailblazing Latino filmmaker will sit down for Q&As before Selena, his biopic about the “Queen of Tejano Music,” at 7 pm Friday, July 24, and El Norte, about the perilous immigration journey of Guatemalan siblings, at 3 pm Saturday, July 25. Both will be in the Plaza Theatre. He will receive the Plaza Classic Award for Career Achievement.
Tickets are $10 for each event, and go on sale June 22 at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster.
Nava, whose work has captured the American Latino experience, is considered one of the most influential and important Mexican American filmmakers today. Three of his films — El Norte, Selena and My Family/Mi Familia — have been selected by the Library of Congress’s National Registry for cultural and historical significance.
El Norte (1983) was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay. Nava followed it with the World War II film, A Time of Destiny (1988). The epic My Family/Mi Familia, released in 1995, followed generations of a Mexican American family and marked the film debut of Jennifer Lopez, who received a Golden Globe nomination for playing the title role in Selena (1997).
The Plaza Classic will have a free showing of My Family/Mi Familia at 1 pm Sunday, July 26 at the Mexican American Cultural Center (Nava will not appear at that screening).
Nava’s other films include Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998), about pop singer Frankie Lymon, and Bordertown (2006), about the femicides in Ciudad Juárez. He also co-wrote the Oscar-winning Frida Kahlo biopic Frida (2002). His television projects include American Family, the first dramatic Latino family series in the U.S., which Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.
The 19th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival will feature 100 movies, specials guests and more over 11 days. Among this year’s titles are Jurassic Park, All the President’s Men, Something’s Gotta Give, What’s Love Got to Do With It, The Sixth Sense, The Princess Bride, Bye Bye Birdie, Titanic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Taxi Driver, Nashville, Purple Rain, Scream, Disney’s Fantasia, a 100th anniversary screening of Clara Bow’s silent classic It, accompanied by Walt Strony on the theater’s original Wyler Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ, and our annual Local Flavor Showcase and Awards.
Tickets go on sale June 22 at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster. Festival passes are available at plazaclassic.com/tickets.
For more information, go to plazaclassic.com or call 915-533-4020.
