Two graduates of New Mexico State University’s Creative Media Institute nabbed the top two prizes in this year’s Local Flavor Awards, sponsored by El Paso Electric and the Texas Film Commission.
Brandon Gass’ ruminative Stillborn, about a family dealing with the death of its matriarch, was selected First Prize Winner and will receive a $1,000 award for his short film, which clocks in slightly under 10 minutes.
The Music Box, Ryan Riddle’s subtle horror story about a father and daughter haunted by the death of a loved one, was chosen Second Prize Winner. He will receive $500 for his short film, which is in Japanese with English subtitles and is just under 25 minutes long.
Due to a technical issue, the selection of the $250 Audience Favorite Award has been postponed until Wednesday, August 12. Check this news blog tomorrow for an announcement.
Local Flavor was curated by filmmakers Zach Passero and Lucky McKee and Plaza Classic Film Festival director Doug Pullen. More than 40 entries were submitted, with 13 selected for inclusion in two Local Flavor programs, which streamed online for the first time in the Plaza Classic’s 13-year history. Both programs were followed by live Q&As with some of the participating filmmakers, which were hosted by Passero and McKee.
If you’re going to see Godzilla, King of the Monsters! tonight or the double bill of Young Frankenstein and Frankenstein on Friday, both at The Hospitals of Providence East Campus, here are a few things you need to know:
• The lot is on the southwest corner of the campus, parallel with Loop 375 and Joe Battle Boulevard.
• The entrance will be via TIERRA CORTEZ AVENUE, which can be accessed from northbound Joe Battle Boulevard and Pebble Hills Boulevard from the east, and other tributaries (see map). Please don’t use the main entrance off of Joe Battle as it needs to be kept clear for emergency vehicles.
• It’s a gravel lot. Lines will be painted so vehicles can be parked in a checkerboard pattern to better serve our social distancing measures.
• The 32x18-foot screen, which is mounted on a portable stage, will be on the north side of the lot, facing south.
• There will be eight portable restrooms on the west side of the lot, parallel to Loop 375/Joe Battle.
• Tickets are $25 per vehicle, available at plazaclassic.com/schedule or the door (if it’s not sold out).
• Admission begins at 7:30 pm, a few minutes earlier if we’re ready and we have a line.
• Programming starts at 8:30 pm
• Bring your own food. There will be no food concessions on site.
• Please follow social distancing guidelines — no chairs outside of your vehicle (you can sit in the back of your truck, SUV, van, etc., but please wear a mask). Wear a mask if you have to walk to the portable restrooms. Wash your hands. Stay six feet apart from anyone outside of your carload.
• Godzilla, King of the Monsters! is the 1956, “Americanized” version of the 1954 Japanese original, and is credited with launching the franchise, which is still going today. It downplays some of the nuclear attack aspects of the original. We are showing it 75 years to the date after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
The online edition of the El Paso Community Foundation’s 13th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival runs August 5-9 and includes digitally streamed movies such as 1984’s Amadeus (with an exclusive interview with El Paso’s F. Murray Abraham), El Paso pop star Khalid’s Free Spirit, and the annual Local Flavor filmmaker showcase.
Due the pandemic, the 2020 Plaza Classic Film Festival is a hybrid of 14 digitally streamed films and 11 nightly pop-up drive-in movie programs, which run through August 9. Click here or here for more information.
The Plaza Classic Film Festival Online opens with the iconic 1980 documentary The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter at 1 p.m. August 5, and concludes with Amadeus, preceded by a Zoom Q&A with Abraham, who won the Academy Award for his performance, at 2 p.m. August 9. Free Spirit, co-conceived by Khalid as a companion piece to his 2019 platinum album of the same name, shows at 7:30 p.m. August 5.
This year’s virtual festival features seven documentaries, including Paul Espinosa’s Singing Our Way to Freedom, an engaging look at Chicano musician and activist Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez, Peter Miller’s Projections of America, about the idealistic American propaganda films overseen by screenwriter Robert Riskin, and Witness at Tornillo, Shane Franklin’s chronicle of one man’s effort to shut down the camp for migrant children in Tornillo, Texas.
The annual Local Flavor showcase highlights new local and locally connected works in two hour-long shorts programs, Local Flavor I and Local Flavor II, curated by filmmakers Zach Passero and Lucky McKee. The third Local Flavor Awards, sponsored by El Paso Electric, will feature the announcement and encore screenings of the $1,000 first prize and $500 second prize selections. Also, Joshua Lozano’s Rest Stop, an adaptation of the Stephen King short story, will be shown out of competition.
Here’s the schedule:
August 5
The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter, 1 pm
Banging Lanie (followed by a Q&A with director Allison Powell), 3:30 pm
Free Spirit, 7:30 pm
August 6
Projections of America (with Q&A with director Peter Miller), 1 pm
The Hanged Woman Vol. II: The Den of Iniquity (with Q&A with filmmaker Marco Marcus), 3:30 pm
Singing Our Way to Freedom, 7 pm
August 7
Witness at Tornillo, 1 pm
The One and Only Jewish Miss America (with Q&A with director David Arond), 3:30 pm
Local Flavor I (with filmmaker Q&A with curators Zach Passero and Lucky McKee), 7 pm
August 8
Finding Freddy, Robert Holguin’s look at late El Paso comic Freddy Soto, 1 pm
Rest Stop (with Q&A with filmmaker Joshua Lozano), 3:30 pm
Local Flavor II (with filmmaker Q&A), 7 pm
August 9
The Local Flavor Awards, encore screens and reveal of first and second prize winners, 1 pm
Amadeus (preceded by a Q&A with El Paso native F. Murray Abraham), 2 pm.
Admission is $5 per film, or $30 for the entire series, on sale now at plazaclassic.com.
Streamed screenings are available only at the announced date and time of each showing.
Sponsors for this year’s Plaza Classic Film Festival On Tour and Online are El Paso Electric, the Paul L. Foster Family Foundation/Mills Plaza Properties, GECU, Debbi Hester/Realtor and Perry Hester/Realtor, the Woody and Gayle Hunt Family Foundation, In*Situ Architecture, the Texas Film Commission, TFCU, Tammy Vasilatos CPA, and the Museums and Cultural Affairs Department.
Tonight’s showing of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park is SOLD OUT!
It is the first of two nights of Plaza Classic Film Festival movie presentations in the northeast parking lot of the El Paso County Coliseum. PCFF On Tour is showing *Selena *there on August 5.
Admission opens at 7:30 pm. The program begins at 8:30 pm.
Tickets for the Plaza Classic Film Festival drive-in movies are $25 per vehicle, on sale at plazaclassic.com/tickets and plazaclassic.com/schedule.
After two nights at the Coliseum, PCFF On Tour ventures to The Hospitals of Providence East Campus, near Joe Battle and Edgemere, for the 1956 version of Godzilla, King of the Monsters! on August 6 and a double bill of Young Frankenstein and 1931’s Frankenstein on August 7. The tour ends with two nights at Hangar 7 Studios on the northwest corner of the El Paso International Airport, with a double bill of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Hedwig and the Angry Inch *on August 8 and *Casablanca on August 9.
Due to unusually high winds that blew the screen down Saturday night, the Plaza Classic Film Festival’s outdoor presentation of Smokey and the Bandit was canceled before the movie’s completion.
The El Paso Community Foundation, which produces the festival, automatically will make full refunds to those who purchased tickets to Saturday’s drive-in movie at the El Paso Community College’s Valle Verde campus.
Patrons who purchased tickets will receive an email message regarding refunds, which should take 7 to 10 business days to process, beginning Monday, August 3, 2020. No action is required on the ticket holder’s part.
The movie will not be rescheduled.
The Plaza Classic Film Festival On Tour drive-in movie series will resume with tonight’s screening of The Birds at 8:30 p.m. August 2, 2020 at Camp Cohen Water Park (formerly Cohen Stadium).
For tickets and a schedule of the remaining Plaza Classic Film Festival’s drive-in movies, go to plazaclassic.com/schedule.
For more information, call the Plaza Theatre Box Office at 915-231-1100.
