2016 Binational Independent Film Festival Press Release

This 2016 we celebrate Supporting Actors, and home-grown filmmakers.

Supporting Actors and Actresses are the backbone of any film.  It is the supporting actor’s task to create the believability around the main actors, and so maintain our suspension of disbelief.  To their, sometimes, unsung work, this year is dedicated.

From the American side we have Antonio Fargas, who with his many supporting roles created an assortment of African-American characters in countless Blaxploitation movies.  He always brought a certain chutzpa and a quite funky style to his characters that actually made it familiar to all, once we knew he was the actor behind the mask.  But it was with the role of Huggy Bear in TV’s Starsky and Hutch that he was able to put all those years of experience to work.

From México we have Perla de la Rosa & Benjamín Islas.  Both with a prolific Theater background, but it is their filmic work the true testament of their quality as performers.  In the case of Perla, her wonderful performance in Mil Nubes de Amor Cercan el Cielo… garnered her the supporting actress Ariel (the Mexican Oscar); and in the case of Benjamín: his unparalleled quality of work in 40 films, has garnered him the respect and admiration of his peers.  Perla left the big screen to go back to her roots: bringing quality theater to the border with her company Telón de Arena.  Benjamín, on the other hand, continues to juggle in between film, theater, and television.

We are also showing films from local filmmakers (shorts & features): productions that were shot around the El Paso – Las Cruces area, by independent filmmakers that decided to remain in our area: producing and directing movies, thus giving a lot of local talent a chance to be on the big screen without having to leave our area, and that’s something that we are also celebrating this year.