Date:
4/30/2008
Contact: Wendel Sloan at 575.562.2253
PORTALES—Admission is now free to everyone attending the High Plains Film Festival at Eastern New Mexico University on Sunday, May 4, at the University Theatre Center on the Portales campus. The event will run from 1–5 p.m. Since refreshments will be served, attendees are requested to call in for free tickets at 575.562.2373. However, until capacity is reached, those showing up at the door without tickets will be admitted.
Following comments by Oscar Robinson on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Film Festival director Robert Vartabedian will introduce distinguished critic Jack Sholder.
A special screening of the 1970 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 Sholder. Also a judge for the High Plains Film Festival, Sholder will 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. Among many other films, he directed “Nightmare on Elm Street 2.”
Following the documentary, the Film Festival will conclude with the viewing and discussion of the winning short films in the pre-college, animation, documentary, and dramatic categories.
Other judges included: 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"; 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; and the office of Gov. Bill Richardson.
The High Plains 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.