BINATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL PRESS RELEASES

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THE BINATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL | Released Jan. 3 2011

The Binational Independent Film Festival is here again, this year adding a different venue: Premiere Cinemas 18 at Bassett Center, more movies, and an excellent repertoire of talent from the United States, Mexico, and the rest of the world. As in past years we are here to strengthen the bond between the United States and Mexico, with a lively dialogue using the documentaries as its language. As the main course, we have one of the remaining Queens of the "Golden Age" of Mexican cinema: María Victoria, and a pillar of Hispanic-independent cinema Mr. León Ichaso.

María Victoria doesn't really need an introduction, and more than deserves the lifetime achievement for her illustrious career, that still continues to this day: She's currently in a play that is touring all over the United States and Mexico. During the latter part of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema she shared the cameras with all of the great actors of the era, mostly, but not exclusively, in musically-themed movies: Andres Soler, Tin Tan, Abel Salazar, Luis Aguilar, Javier Solís, Pedro Vargas, José Alfredo Jiménez, etc. She was prominently featured in last year's Tin Tan documentary as one of his muses. Ms. Victoria also had a very successful career in Television with "La Criada Malcriada" which lasted a decade as the #1 comedy program on national television, and to this date still appears in Novelas and mini-series.

León Ichaso is the most prominent Hispanic-independent filmmakers of our time, with such films as El Super, Crossover Dreams, Sugar Hill, Azúcar Amarga, Piñeiro, El Cantante, and Paraiso. He has launched the cinematic careers of actors of the caliber of Ruben Blades and Wesley Snipes. He is famous for all the awards and accolades he has received, but he is also famous for directing movies with Hispanics in the lead roles: Benjamin Bratt, Jenniffer Lopez, and Marc Anthony. Mr. Ichaso has also had an extensive television career spanning from Miami Vice, through Saturday Night Live, all the way to Cane and The Cleaner.

As for the films: the Festival is bringing to you a wide variety of films from the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Ireland, Costa Rica, Canada, Norway, and Argentina. We are also premiering John Sayles latest film, Amigo (this film opened in the United States three months ago, but never opened in El Paso, Texas, or Cd. Juárez. But that's not all: we also have the competition of shorts, documentaries, and screenplays, with entries from all over the world. We already know that this year's festival will be one of our best, not only in films, talent, content, but we will be having even more talks with filmmakers & celebrities. All in our new venues: Premiere Cinemas at Bassett, at 7 p.m. every day, and on the other side of the border, we are now not only at El CEMA (the City Center for the Arts). We're also showing the documentaries at the El Paso Main Library (downtown) every day at 5 p.m., and will have two more venues downtown to show shorts and first-time director features during the weekends, again these venues will be released in the middle of March. We hope to see you all there, and enjoy a truly bi-national event in our area!