The El Paso Film Festival launches its debut September 14-16 in Downtown El Paso. The event will feature short films, documentaries and feature films by local, national and international filmmakers.
Festival founder, Carlos Corral, is the former “Local Flavor” curator for the Plaza Classic Film Festival. That position garnered him networking skills among local and regional filmmakers. That, along with his experience as a film producer, writer, director and location sound mixer provided the nuts and bolts of running his own festival. The seminal ingredient though is his drive to El Paso into an independent film mecca.
“Part of the objective of this film festival is to screen films by El Pasoans, but also to bring outside people in so they can realize there’s just as much good talent in El Paso, so if you do come and do your project here, we can get you hooked up with the right people,” Corral said.
Some of the films being screened at the event include efforts from Corral himself. He did sound for the documentary Home + Away, a documentary that follows a group of Bowie High School students around for six months. Other films scheduled to be screened are slew of shorts, science fiction movies and another documentary, Run Like the Devil.
“It’s a film about Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke,” Corral said. “It very much humanizes them and you learn stuff about them that you’d never guess.”
Corral acknowledged the 2 main factors he focused on for this festival was a solidly delivered story line and exceptional sound. He also looked for idiosyncratic connections to the border area. For instance, Are You Volleyball? by Iranian film maker Mohammad Bakshi, is a short film about a group of refugees who become blocked by some guards and a fence. The refugees and guards conflict daily until a deaf-mute boy comes up the idea to start a game of volleyball.
“I thought ‘this is kind of a border story,” Corral said.
Another unique aspect of the El Paso Film Festival is the cash prize element. The festival is one of only 28 film festivals in the country to award cash prizes for different categories. Best Feature Film, Best Short Film and the Grand Jury Award are among the categories film makers can compete in. Up to $5,000 will be awarded to all of the winning short and feature films.
Prize money has been sponsored by festival sponsors which include the Paso Del Norte Foundation, the Herrera Group and El Paso Cosmetic Surgery, among others.
Tickets can be purchased a la carte and are five dollars for daytime shows and 10 dollars for evening shows.
Corral indicated he kept prices reasonable in an effort to make the event accessible to everyone.
“For this first year, I want to see a big turnout and let everybody know indie film is coming to El Paso,” he said. “Come out and support it.”
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El Paso Film Festival
September 14—16
Films will be screened at the El Paso Museum of Art, the Philanthropy Theater and the Plaza Theater
For more information visit www.elpasofilmfestival.org