Date:
4/16/2008
Contact: Wendel Sloan at 575.562.2253
PORTALES—Non-profit and educational groups will get in free to the High Plains Film Festival at Eastern New Mexico University from 1–5 p.m. on Sunday, May 4, at the University Theatre Center on the Portales campus. Tickets for individuals are $5 at the door.
Screenings will begin at 3:30 p.m. for approximately eight short winning films, up to 10 minutes long, in the categories of animation, documentary/experimental and dramatic. Winners were chosen from pre-college and college and beyond divisions.
A special screening of the 1969 Academy Award-nominated documentary "King: A Filmed Record…Montgomery to Memphis" will be held at 1:30 p.m. The documentary was directed by Sidney Lumet and Joseph Mankiewicz, and edited by Jack Sholder. Sholder, a judge for the High Plains Film Fest, will be present to discuss the documentary. He is an Emmy and Grand Prix award-winning editor and director who leads the Motion Picture and Television Program at Western Carolina University.
Other judges include actress Joan Leslie, who appeared with Humphrey Bogart in "High Sierra," with James Cagney in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and with Gary Cooper in "Sergeant York."
Another panelist is former ENMU student and screenwriter Diana Ossana, who collaborated with Larry McMurtry on "Brokeback Mountain," which won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay in 2005.
Gov. Bill Richardson's office is also judging.
The film festival celebrates ENMU's Digital Cinema Arts program, established in 2006, and New Mexico's growing film industry, said Michael Sitton, dean of ENMU's College of Fine Arts.
For more information, check the festival Web site at www.enmu.edu/filmfest or call 575.562.2373.