Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
The historic Odeon Theatre primarily will host Friday and Saturday’s second annual Tucumcari Film Festival, along with several other events at the nearby Tucumcari Railroad Depot.
The festival, held last year at Mesalands Community College during Tucumcari Rawhide Days, celebrates the West and Southwest and the culture that helped shape Tucumcari.
Bobby Hockaday, liaison for Film Tucumcari and organizer of the festival, said he received 26 entries, and 13 will be screened during the two-day event.
“I think it will be a lovely presentation for the attendees,” he said of the films. “It will be very interesting to see how people react to them. I really love the short historical documentaries that we have.”
Hockaday said he was taken in particular by the 17-minute “Marismeno,” where a group of Andalusian cowboys dedicate themselves to maintaining the last wild herd of endangered Marismeno horses during an ancient religious festival. That film will be shown about 9:30 a.m. Saturday.
The festival’s winning films also will be screened during Rawhide Days on June 16-18.
This year’s entries range from 4-minute videos to 1 hour, 10-minute movies.
The event will host a free outdoor screening of “For the Reward” and a Ukrainian film, translated as “Forgotten Song,” at 8 p.m. Friday at the Sands-Dorsey green space just north of the Ocean. Hockaday said the first film “has a lot of heart and is really entertaining.”
Those films will be shown on a temporary screen attached to the north wall of Downtown Dispensary. In case of bad weather, those screenings will be moved into the depot.
On Friday, the doors open at the Odeon at 12:30 p.m. and begins at 1 with a music video, “Pretend,” then a short film, “The Green Chile Bagel”; a student short film titled “Foresight”; and two short films, “All for a Filthy Star” and “A Few More Drinks.”
On Saturday, the screenings begin at 9 a.m. with short films “Time Will Let Me,” “Marismeno,” “Robo Hills Texas” and “A Personal Errand.”
A short documentary, “Hollywood’s Last Real Cowboy: The Gene McLaughlin Story,” will be screened about 1 p.m.
The festival includes discussion panels, including “Women in Film” at 1:30 p.m. and a special effects makeup demonstration by Tucumcari resident Jasmine Hernandez at 2:45 p.m., both Saturday at the Odeon.
The depot also will host “How to Produce Films in New Mexico” at 3:30 p.m. Friday and the festival-ending awards ceremony at 7 p.m. Saturday.
The full schedule of the Tucumcari Film Festival may be found at filmfreeway.com/tucumcarifilmfest.
Tickets, which range from all-access VIP passes to all-day screenings passes, are available at the door or online at filmfreeway.com/tucumcarifilmfest/tickets.