Writer Victoria Riskin will appear at the El Paso Community Foundation’s 12th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival in August to talk about some of her parents’ movies and sign copies of her acclaimed new biography, Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir.
Ms. Riskin, the daughter of actress Fay Wray (King Kong, The Most Dangerous Game) and the great screenwriter Robert Riskin (It Happened One Night, Meet John Doe), will discuss her mother’s work as Ann Darrow in an onstage interview before a screening of the 1933 masterpiece King Kong at 7 p.m. Tuesday, August 6 in the Plaza Theatre.
She also will introduce one of her mother’s favorite movies, the 1928 Eric von Stroheim silent classic The Wedding March at 1 p.m. Tuesday, August 6, and one of her father’s most popular films, the 1938 romantic comedy You Can’t Take It With You, at 1 p.m. Wednesday, August 7. Both will be in the Plaza Theatre.
She will follow the You Can’t Take It With You screening with a book signing at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, August 7 in the Plaza Theatre.
Victoria Riskin is an award-winning television writer-producer (The Last Best Year, My Antonia, The Member of the Wedding), former president of the Writers Guild of America, West, and an activist who served on the board of Human Rights Watch.
Her mother starred in more than 120 movies and successfully transitioned from silent movies to talkies. Fay Wray met Robert Riskin — “Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor,” known for his nine films directed by Frank Capra — at a party in 1940. Their fairytale marriage ended with Riskin’s tragic death in 1955.
Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir has received rave reviews. The Associated Press wrote: “If there was an Academy Award for movie books, Victoria Riskin would be making room beside the Oscar her father won for writing the romantic comedy classic It Happened One Night.”
This year’s Plaza Classic Film Festival will feature more than 90 movies from August 1-11, 2019 in and around the historic Plaza Theatre.
In addition to Ms. Riskin, the Plaza Classic’s guests include husband-and-wife acting couple Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at 7 p.m. Friday, August 2 and the 1978 cult classic The Legacy at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, August 3, both in the Plaza Theatre.
Among the titles announced so far are an 80th anniversary screening of The Wizard of Oz, the Plaza Classic debut of My Fair Lady, a new 4K restoration of 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1939’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the 11th annual free outdoor showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Individual tickets go on sale in early July. Festival passes are on sale now at plazaclassic.com/tickets. Call 915-533-4020 for more information.
Academy Award nominees Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross will be special guests of the El Paso Community Foundation’s 12th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival this August.
The couple will appear for on-stage interviews before a 50th anniversary screening of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at 7 p.m. Friday, August 2, and the 1978 cult horror classic The Legacy at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, August 3, both in the Plaza Theatre. The Plaza Classic Film Festival also will honor Katharine Ross with its Plaza Classic Award for lifetime achievement.
The festival will be August 1-11, 2019 in and around the historic Plaza Theatre.
Katharine Ross co-starred in Butch Cassidy with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Sam Elliott played a bit part as Card Player Number Two. The couple began dating while making The Legacy, which was directed by Richard Marquand (Return of the Jedi), and married in 1984.
Sam Elliott, whose parents were from El Paso, was a big hit at last year’s PCFF, appearing for the U.S. premiere of The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot. He was nominated this year for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Bradley Cooper’s remake of A Star Is Born, for which he also won a Best Supporting Actor award from the National Board of Review. Sam received the Plaza Classic Award last year for his more than 50-year career, including movies and TV shows such as Mask, Lifeguard, Conagher, Tombstone, and The Big Lebowski.
Katharine Ross appeared on various television shows in the early 1960s before receiving an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Elaine Robinson in 1967’s The Graduate. She won Britain’s BAFTA Award for Best Actress for her work as Etta Place in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and again for Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here. She also received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for Voyage of the Damned.
In addition to the couple’s appearances, PCFF previously announced an 80th anniversary screening of The Wizard of Oz, the Plaza Classic debut of My Fair Lady, a new 4K restoration of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the 1939 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. More titles will be announced soon. The Plaza Classic shows more than 90 movies each year.
Individual tickets go on sale in early July. Festival passes are on sale now at plazaclassic.com/tickets. Call 915-533-4020 for more information.
Friday’s premiere of the moving new documentary Hearts on the Gila — which comes a week after New Mexico’s Gila River was named the most endangered river in the country — will include special guests from the film.
The premiere screening of the documentary will be at 7 p.m. Friday, April 26 in the El Paso Community Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon, across from San Jacinto Plaza. It is the first stop on a six-city tour of the film.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Albuquerque-based director David Garcia, and Patrice Mutchnick and Jennifer Mahl, two of the three women featured in the work-in-progress documentary, which will be entered into film festivals later this year.
Doors open at 6 p.m. Complimentary hors d’oeuvres will be served. There will be a cash bar (beer and wine). Parking is available nearby at the Chase/Mills Plaza Parking Garage on Oregon Street.
Admission is $10 at the door, or in advance at epcf.org/gila.
Hearts on the Gila chronicles friends Jennifer Douglass, Mahl and Mutchnick as they journey down the Gila River, the last free-flowing river in New Mexico. They were in search of hope and solace on a tribute voyage to their teenaged children — Ella Jaz Kirk, Michael Sebastian Mahl and Ella Sala Myers — who died in 2014 in a plane crash while conducting an environmental research project in the Gila Wilderness.
Last week, the American Rivers conservation group named New Mexico’s Gila River 2019’s most endangered river in the country, citing climate change and a long-gestating diversion project.
Grecia Nunez, a public lands fellow with New Mexico Wild, will give an update on federal wild and scenic legislation for the river. Alexandra Tager, a board member of the Heart of the Gila preservation and advocacy nonprofit, will be on hand to answer questions.
The El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival hosts the screening, the first stop of a six-city tour that includes Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos, Silver City and Mesilla in New Mexico. The tour is presented by Heart of the Gila, New Mexico Wild and the Center for Biological Diversity.
The filmmakers have launched a crowdfunding campaign to finish the film. Click here to contribute.
To learn more about the film or watch the trailer, click here.
Journey down the Gila River with three mothers in search of hope and renewal after the tragic loss of their children in a screening of the work-in-progress documentary Hearts on the Gila at 7 p.m. Friday, April 26 in the El Paso Community Foundation’s Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon, across from San Jacinto Plaza in downtown El Paso.
Doors open at 6 p.m.
Complimentary hors d’oeuvres will be served. There will be a cash bar (beer and wine).
Parking is available nearby at the Chase/Mills Plaza Parking Garage on Oregon Street.
Admission is $10 at the door or online at epcf.org/gila. Proceeds go to Heart of the Gila.
The El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival hosts the screening, the first stop of a six-city tour that includes Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos, Silver City and Mesilla in New Mexico. The tour is presented by Heart of the Gila, New Mexico Wild, and the Center for Biological Diversity, nonprofit groups dedicated to protecting and promoting wild and scenic protection for New Mexico’s last wild river.
Albuquerque filmmaker David Garcia and some of the film’s subjects will participate in a Q&A after the screening.
Hearts on the Gila takes place four years after three mothers lost their teenage children in a tragic plane crash. The women embarked on a 36-mile kayak journey down the Gila River into the Gila Wilderness in southwestern New Mexico. Their children, passionate environmentalists who were inextricably linked to the Gila, were studying the effects of a devastating forest fire when their plane went down in high wind. The mothers look for hope and solace on the waters of one of America’s last wild rivers and one of America’s great natural treasures.
In Garcia’s film, the women learn about themselves, their children’s legacies, and the importance of wild river systems to the spiritual health of humanity in a world where wild places are rapidly disappearing.
The tour of this work-in-progress version of Hearts on the Gila — which will be submitted to major film festivals around the world when completed this year — is designed to raise awareness of the challenges facing the river, which runs through the nation’s first official wilderness area. The screenings will be an opportunity for audience members to engage in a direct way with the filmmaking process and to dialogue in person with the filmmaker and some of the film’s subjects.
Award-winning journalist Bob Moore will join best-selling author Ron Stallworth and his wife, Patsy Terrazas-Stallworth, for a special benefit screening of the the Oscar-winning film BlacKkKlansman at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 21 in the Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon.
Doors open at 6 p.m.
Ron and Patsy will take part in a Q&A after the screening. Former El Paso Times editor Moore will moderate. The movie is based on Ron’s book, Black Klansman.
Hosted by the El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival, the screening is a benefit for the Migrant Families Relief Fund in the El Paso Community Foundation.
Tickets are a suggested donation of $50, available at epcf.org/bkkk and at the door. Souvenir tickets will be handed out at the door.
Stallworth, who was a guest at last year’s Plaza Classic Film Festival, has described his Hollywood experience with the film and his book as “once in a lifetime.” The El Paso-based author’s memoir details how the Austin High School graduate and Colorado Springs police detective infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1970s.
It was published independently in 2014 and reissued in 2018 by McMillan’s Flatiron Books, becoming a New York Times best-seller.
Pre-signed copies will be available for sale at the event from 6 to 8 p.m.
Director Spike Lee’s film version, BlacKkKlansman, has grossed more than $90 million since its Focus Features release on August 10, 2018. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It won the Oscar, Lee’s first, for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The New York Times called it one of Lee’s “greatest” films.
BlacKkKlansman is rated R.
The Migrant Families Relief Fund was created in 2018 to assist four El Paso nonprofits that provide shelter, legal services, advocacy and other support for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the U.S. — Annunciation House; the Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee; Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services; and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.
Go to epcf.org/families to donate.
