El Paso native Yvette Yates will return to the Plaza Classic Film Festival, where she debuted in 2014.
Yvette will appear with the new comedy horror movie “Bloodsucking Bastards” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, August 7 at the Philanthropy Theatre.
Tickets are $4 at the box office, Ticketmaster and plazaclassic.com.
Yvette was here last year with “In the Blood.” Since then, she appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson’s late 2014 release “Inherent Vice.”
She will take questions from the audience after the “Bloodsucking Bastards” screening, which is sponsored by SoBellas Home Services.
The ghoulish office spoof, written by Los Angeles comedy troupe Dr. God, debuted at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival and will be released commercially on September 4.
Plaza Classic Film Festival tickets are on sale now at the Plaza Theatre box office, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com, plazaclassic.com and 800-745-3000.
Festival passes are $200 and include admission to all ticketed events, an express lane and more. A limited number of Film Club passes, for teenagers 14 to 18, are $100. They are available at 915- 533-4020 and plazaclassic.com.
“Laverne & Shirley” star Cindy Williams was a stage and movie actress before TV superstardom came her way.
She will appear with one of those movies, George Lucas’ 1973 blockbuster “American Graffiti,” at this year’s Plaza Classic Film Festival. It will be at 7 p.m. Friday, August 14 in the Plaza Theatre.
Tickets are $10 at the box office, Ticketmaster, plazaclassic.com and 800-745-3000.
Miss Williams also will sign copies of her new memoir, “Shirley, I Jest!,” at noon Saturday, August 15 in the El Paso Community Foundation’s Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon. Admission is free, but book purchase is required. Books will be available for sale at the signing.
Williams, who grew up in Texas, played Shirley Feeney on TV’s “Laverne & Shirley” for seven seasons. Before its 1976 launch, she made her first movie in Socorro, N.M., and worked on three others with top directors from old and new Hollywood — “Travels With My Aunt” (George Cukor), “The Conversation” (Francis Ford Coppola) and “American Graffiti” (Lucas). She also appeared in the Jack Nicholson-directed “Drive, He Said.”
She also has an active theater career, and recently appeared at the Spencer Theatre in Alto, N.M., near Ruidoso, with a touring production of “Nunsense Boulevard: The Nunset Hollywood Bowl Show.”
A total of 36 locally made or connected film projects have been selected for this year’s Local Flavor series. Seventy projects were submitted for what has become the area’s largest showcase for local filmmakers, and an important part of the Plaza Classic Film Festival, which returns for its eighth year August 5-16.
Here’s a rundown of this year’s Local Flavor programs, which are generously sponsored by the Texas Film Commission.
The Good, The Bad, The Indie, Vol. 11 7:30 p.m. Friday, August 7 The Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon FREE
• Machos Para Quiero (Carlos Tejeda) • Somewhere (Lloyd Blunk) • End of ASARCO (Mac Snodgrass) • Creative Kids (Rayell Abad) • De Lunes a Viernes (Oscar Moreno) • ABOMIBLE (Isaac Marquez) • Empapado (Jesus Genaro Limon) • Un Derecho de Nacimiento (Tito Arenal) • No Habla (Johanna Lopez) • Drag (Christian Hanna) • Ed Patrykus (Cameron Scott) • Sole Man (Samantha Contreras) • Spherical (Mindy Calvillo) • Z-Town (Thomas Kwiat) • Unwrapped: Guillen vs Vela (Roman G. Robles) • The Zombie National Guard (Clyde James Aragon) • Autistic Thoughts (Dimitri Sein) • BULL** (David Melendez) • Insubordinate Claus (Victor Maestas)
Filmmakers will be in attendance.
Shorts 1 7:30 p.m. Saturday, August 8 The Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon FREE
• Princess (Ross Marks) • Odessa (Grace Santos, Doug Johnson, Sean Turrell, Andrew Shebay) • Sunrise (Diego Rico) • While You Were in a Coma (Zach Passero) • Tempered (Robert Robles & J.J. Nunez) • Para Ellos (Christian Contreras & Victoria De La Torre)
Filmmakers will be in attendance.
TRUTH Sci-fi/horror (PRC Productions) 9:30 p.m. Saturday, August 8 Philanthropy Theatre $4
Do You Dream in Color? (pictured) Documentary (Regina Saldivar, producer) 3:30 p.m. Sunday, August 9 Philanthropy Theatre $4
Shorts 2 7:30 p.m. Friday, August 14 The Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon FREE
• Fluff (Ross Marks) • 100 Miles To Lordsburg (Brad Littlefield) • Aero / Aero Origins (Arturo Vargas) • Incandescent (Gabriel Bravo) • Borderline (Elida Portillo) • Land of the Home-Free (Diego Davila/ Perla Chaparro) • Penny (Luis Ruiz) • An Awkward First Date (Holly Packard Cobb)
Filmmakers will be in attendance.
Brooklyn Unemployed Comedy/drama (James Arrabito, director) 7:30 p.m. Saturday, August 15 The Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon FREE
Plaza Classic Film Camp Winners Projects by students aged 9-13 2 p.m. Sunday, August 16 The Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon FREE
Ghostlight 48 HR. Film Slam Winners 3:30 p.m. Sunday, August 16 The Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon FREE
The El Paso Community Foundation’s Plaza Classic Film Festival marks the return of the Civil War-era epic “Gone With the Wind” with an encore screening at the Plaza Theatre and a related exhibit at the El Paso Museum of History.
The world’s largest classic film festival, which returns to downtown El Paso for its eighth year August 5-16, 2015, will show the sweeping romantic drama starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh at 6 p.m. Saturday, August 8 in the Plaza Theatre, where it first opened locally on February 9, 1940. It last played PCFF in 2009.
The exhibit, “Frankly My Dear: The Art and Impact of Gone With the Wind,” offers a behind-the- scenes look at the creation of one of Hollywood’s most beloved movies. It runs July 24 through September 6 at the Museum of History, 510 N. Santa Fe, the festival’s first collaboration with the institution, which is part of the City of El Paso’s Museums and Cultural Affairs Department. Admission is free.
The exhibit, generously supported by Wells Fargo, features correspondence, concept art, storyboards, costume sketches, photographs and more from the David O. Selznick Collection, on loan from the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, which houses the collection. The items were part of the Ransom Center’s 2014 exhibit, “The Making of Gone With the Wind.”
Additionally, “Frankly My Dear” will include an authorized reproduction of Scarlett O’Hara’s wedding dress, Civil War-era clothing and weapons from the history museum’s permanent collection, and insights into what El Paso was like during the Civil War and in 1940, when the movie opened here.
“This exhibition allows the El Paso Community Foundation to shed some light on the making of one of the most successful — and popular — movies of all time while bringing the El Paso Museum of History into the Plaza Classic Film Festival fold for the first time. Frankly, I hope people really enjoy it,” said Eric Pearson, President and CEO of the El Paso Community Foundation.
“The El Paso Museum of History is thrilled to partner with the El Paso Community Foundation and the Plaza Classic Film Festival on an exhibition that will allow festival visitors the opportunity to go deeper into the making of an iconic American film that changed the history of filmmaking,” said Julia Bussinger, Director of the El Paso Museum of History.
Free Tours, lectures and related programming will be offered during the run of “Frankly My Dear” at the El Paso Museum of History. Steve Wilson, film curator at the Ransom Center, and Ann DuPont, the wedding dress’ owner and fashion merchandising program coordinator at Texas State University- San Marcos, will give talks on August 8.
Several movies with connections to “Gone With the Wind” will be shown at this year’s festival. They include “A Streetcar Named Desire,” for which Leigh won the Academy Award, at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, August 6; “The Misfits,” Clark Gable’s last movie, at 3:30 p.m. Friday, August 7; and “Combat America,” a World War II documentary directed and narrated by Gable, at noon Sunday, August 9.
Tickets for “Gone With the Wind,” which will include an intermission, are $8. They go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, July 10, along with the 80 other movies planned for this year’s festival. Tickets will be available at the Plaza Theatre box office, Ticketmaster outlets, http://plazaclassic.com, http://ticketmaster.com and 800-745-3000.
Festival passes are $200 and include admission to all ticketed events, an express lane, early reservations for Philanthropy Theatre shows, a special passholders reception and more. They are available at http://plazaclassic.com or by calling 915-533-4020.
For information about “Frankly My Dear” and other Museum of History activities, call 915-351-3588 or go to http://history.elpasotexas.gov.
The El Paso Community Foundation’s Plaza Classic Film Festival is going camping!
The first Plaza Classic Film Camp is for aspiring young filmmakers ages 9 to 13 and will run from Aug. 3-14, 2015, announced Eric Pearson, El Paso Community Foundation President and CEO.
Aspiring young Spielbergs will work with professionals to conceive, write, storyboard, shoot and edit their own short movies. The camp will meet on weekdays 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon.
The two-week intensive camp will be run by the Philosophic Systems Institute and will explore the fundamentals of filmmaking, animation, acting, directing, and editing. The class will culminate in a handful of short films. In addition to a viewing party for friends and family on the last day of the camp, some of the students’ films will be shown during the Plaza Classic Film Festival at 2 p.m. Sunday, August 16.
Registration is available online at plazaclassic.com or by phone at 915-533-4020. Deadline for registering is August 1.
Tuition is $150 per week ($300 total) through July 27. Late registration fee is $325 from July 28-August 1.
What: The first Plaza Classic Film Camp When: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays, Aug. 3-14 Where: El Paso Community Foundation Room, 333 N. Oregon. How: plazaclassic.com, 915-533-4020
