Eight local and locally connected films will be featured in the El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival Local Flavor Showcase and Awards. There are three narrative shorts, three documentary shorts, and two music videos in this year’s program.
This year’s selections are Barbette + Fontaine, documentary, Zak Zeh; The Cost of Opportunity, narrative, Bryant Valenzuela; Echoes of the Rio, documentary, Jackie Barragan; Haunted Places, narrative, Lia Gonzalez; ‘I Did the Wrong Thing’/The Romancers, music video, Diego Munoz Holguin; ‘Mares de Lagrima’/Papayas con Chile, music video, Ryan Michael Robson; Norma, documentary, Edmund A. Lozano; and Three Months in Star City (Ay Ay), narrative, Ulises Córdova.
They will screen at 3:30 pm Sunday, July 28 in the Plaza Theatre’s Kendle Kidd Performance Hall. Tickets are $6 at the Plaza Theatre Box Office (no service charge) and Ticketmaster.com (includes service charges).
The 17th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival runs July 18-28 and features special guests Sissy Spacek and Mira Sorvino. Go to plazaclassic.com/schedule to learn more.
The seventh annual Local Flavor Awards total $3,600 and will be handed out at the end of the program. Awards will be given for First Prize ($1,500), Second Prize ($1,000), Third Prize ($750), College Student Film ($100), and the audience will choose a favorite via text, which is worth $250 to the winner.
An after party will follow from 5:30-7 pm Sunday, July 28 in the Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon (across from San Jacinto Plaza). It is free and open to the public.
Local Flavor is sponsored by the El Paso Film & Creative Industries Commission, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and the El Paso Community Foundation.
Like the old man in Moonstruck says, someone tell a joke.
Did you hear the one about the pre-show dinner at this year’s Plaza Classic Film Festival?
It sold out.
No joke.
Tickets are all gone for this year’s Snap Out of It Dinner at 5 pm Monday, July 22 in the Foundation Room.
It’s the third straight year we’ve sold out our pre-show dinner, which precedes a romantic comedy in the Plaza Theatre.
While the dinner is sold out, there are plenty of tickets left for our screening of Moonstruck at 7 pm Monday, July 22 in the Plaza Theatre. Tickets are $8 at the Plaza Theatre Box Office (no service charge) and Ticketmaster.com (service charges apply).
If you missed out on the dinner, you might consider the free lecture about Moonstruck from 6-6:30 pm in the Philanthropy Theatre, which is inside the Plaza Theatre complex.
Passes and two other special events — Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the La Perla Patio Bar of the Plaza Hotel Pioneer Park and Curious George at La Nube — are on sale at plazaclassic.com/tickets. Check out this year’s PCFF schedule at plazaclassic.com/schedule. Tickets are on sale at the box office and Ticketmaster.com.
Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino will appear at the 17th annual El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival.
Sorvino will appear with Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite(1995), for which she won the Academy Award for best supporting actress, at 7 pm Friday, July 19. She also will appear with one of her most popular movies, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997), at 3:30 pm Saturday, July 20. Tickets are $10 for each screening, on sale at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster.
Sorvino, daughter of late actor Paul Sorvino, has appeared in numerous films and television series since the early 1990s. Notable film appearances include Quiz Show, Norma Jean & Marilyn, Mimic, and last year’s independently released box-office blockbuster Sounds of Freedom, which dealt with a topic about which Sorvino is passionate — human trafficking.
A Harvard University graduate, Sorvino has been an outspoken advocate for the elimination of human trafficking, sex-trafficking, and slavery. Married with four children, she is a United National Goodwill Ambassador and was named its Global Advocate of the Year. She is part of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, being among the first to speak out about studio executive Harvey Weinstein and served as an ambassador for Amnesty International’s Stop Violence Against Women campaign, receiving its Artist of Conscience Award.
Sorvino joins fellow Academy Award winner Sissy Spacek as this year’s special guests. Spacek will appear with Coal Miner’s Daughter, for which she won the Academy Award, at 7 pm July 27 in the Plaza Theatre.
The 17th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival will feature more than 90 movies from July 18-28 in and around the Plaza Theatre. Individual tickets are available at the box office and Ticketmaster. Passes and special events are on sale at plazaclassic.com/tickets.
Academy Award winner — and Texas native — Sissy Spacek will appear at the 17th annual El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival, which runs from July 18-28 in and around El Paso’s historic and restored Plaza Theatre.
Spacek will appear with Coal Miner’s Daughter at 7 pm Saturday, Juy 27 in the Plaza Theatre. She received the Academy Award for her inspired portrayal of legendary country singer and songwriter Loretta Lynn in the 1980 Michael Apted classic, in which Spacek did her own singing.
Sissy Spacek has been one of the industry’s most respected actresses in a career spanning six decades. Her many honors include an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, five additional Oscar nominations, a Grammy nomination, three Golden Globe Awards, and numerous critics awards.
Born in Quitman, Texas, Spacek aspired to be a singer-songwriter before her acting career took off. She first gained the attention of critics and audiences in Terrence Malick’s widely praised Badlands, on which she met production designer Jack Fisk, with whom she celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary this year.
Spacek earned her first Academy Award nomination for her chilling performance in the title role of Brian de Palma’s Carrie, based on the Stephen King novel (also showing in PCFF 2024). Other notable film credits include Three Women, Fisk’s Raggedy Man, and Oscar-nominated performances in Missing, The River, Crimes of the Heart, and In the Bedroom. Other film credits include The Straight Story, JFK, and The Help. She also starred in Netflix’s Bloodline, Hulu’s Castle Rock, and Amazon Prime Video’s Homecoming and Night Sky, with a recurring role in FX’s forthcoming Dying for Sex.
Tickets for this year’s Plaza Classic Film Festival go on sale at 10 am Friday, June 14 at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster. Passes are on sale at plazaclassic.com/tickets. Go to plazaclassic.com for more information.
The El Paso Community Foundation’s Plaza Classic Film Festival is in the podcast business. The Plaza Classic Podcast is now streaming on the Plaza Classic Film Festival website and streaming platforms.
The Plaza Classic Podcast is hosted by KVIA news anchor and three-time Regional Edward R. Murrow Award-winner and Borderland Crimes podcaster Stephanie Valle and EPCC Mass Communication Professor Lisa Elliott. Valle and Elliott are members of the Plaza Classic Film Festival Program Advisory Committee. The podcast is produced in partnership with EPCC and the El Paso Community Foundation.
Each episode features guests ranging from committee members to filmmakers who delve into a different aspect of the city’s No. 1 feel-good summer event, including this year’s schedule, the Local Flavor showcase, screenwriting competition, and more.
Episode 1, which examines the history of the festival and the popularity of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, is streaming now. The second episode features committee member and UTEP administrator Jaime Mendez and will be posted May 30. Episodes will be posted weekly through the end of the Plaza Classic. Future episodes feature El Paso filmmaker Josh Pulido, screenwriting competition coordinator Austin Savage, and 2023 screenwriting winner Carrie Silva.
“The Plaza Classic Film Festival is a gift to El Paso. We wanted to share behind-the-scenes details and introduce the people involved in the process,” Valle said. Added Elliott: “There’s also more to say about the films featured than can be covered in our introductions before festival screenings. A podcast was a natural way to do that.”
The 17th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival will be July 18-28, 2024, in and around El Paso’s historic Plaza Theatre. The festival will include movies based on Stephen King stories, a film noir thread, the Local Flavor Showcase and Awards, and movies such as Sunset Boulevard, The Shawshank Redemption, and our 16th annual FREE outdoor showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Passes are on sale at plazaclassic.com/tickets. Individual tickets go on sale in June.
