Plaza Classic FIlm Festival Underway

The Plaza Classic Film Festival opened Wednesday, and hundreds have attended several showings. After years of being celebrated in the downtown theater, the festival has become a part of El Paso culture.

“It’s a way to celebrate the Plaza theater. The Plaza theater was built…rebuilt in 2006 and it’s a gift from the Foundation to the city, and it’s operated by the city,” said Eric Pearson, president of the El Paso Community Foundation, the organizing group.

The Plaza Theater, a cultural icon, has served El Paso for 85 years. The past eight hosting the classic film festival.

“We just want to have some fun, you know? Show some great movies, share some memories,” said Pearson.

The celebration serves as more than simply a week of movies.

The El Paso Community says nearly 6,000 of the 40,000 attendees are from outside the borderplex. The Foundation credits these visitors with bringing almost $1.5 million to the borderland.

The festival also serves as a platform for younger generations to be exposed to how life was in years past, and to learn from it.

“I think it’s very important to understand history as a prologue for the present,” said Charlie Clements, the subject of the documentary Witness to War, a movie adapted from his eponymous book.

The movie documents Clement’s change in his point of view from his years as a Navy pilot in the Vietnam conflict to being a doctor during the El Salvador civil war.

Some local artists even get the chance to have their films shown on the big screen.

“It’s a good way of communicating to the people of El Paso that there is good talent in the younger generation,” said , mother of a local producer whose movie was screened Sunday.

The film festival has more than a hundred events planned for 2015. Showings are scheduled until next Sunday. For more information on the film schedule visit the Plaza Classic Film Festival website.