Silent film fans are in for a double treat at this year’s El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival. Theater organist extraordinaire Walt Strony returns to accompany two silent classics on the Plaza Theatre’s original, restored Wyler Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ during the festival, which runs July 16-26 in and around the Plaza Theatre in downtown El Paso.
Strony, who has been a fixture at the Plaza Classic since 2013, will accompany Clara Bow’s 1927 comedy It at 4 pm Sunday, July 19 in the Plaza Theatre. Tickets are $6, on sale Monday, June 22 at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster.
He’ll return the following week to accompany Buster Keaton’s 100-year-old Civil War classic, The General, at 12:30 pm Thursday, July 23, part of the festival’s free, annual Plaza Days program. Strony made his Plaza Classic debut in 2010 when he accompanied the 1926 Keaton film.
He returned to the Plaza Classic in 2013 to accompany The Thief of Bagdad and has returned every year since to work his magic with some of the best silent films ever made, including Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last!, Kid Brother and Speedy, Keaton’s The Cameraman and Steamboat Bill Jr., and other classics including Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings and Lon Chaney’s The Phantom of the Opera. He’s also accompanied several silent shorts by Charlie Chaplin, Charley Chase and Laurel and Hardy in various Plaza Days programs.
One of America’s premiere concert and theater organists, Strony studied with silent film accompanists and was a protégé of longtime Chicago Stadium organist Al Melgard. He has performed with films and symphony orchestras all over the world and is frequently featured at conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the American Theatre Organ Society, which inducted him into its hall of fame in 2011.
Walt also will play before several films during this year’s film festival. Ken Fedorick, John Fields, Rick Garven, Joshua Gunstream and Laurie Koval also will perform on the Wyler Mighty Wurlitzer before many of the films in the Plaza Theatre.
Tickets for the 19th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival go on sale Monday, June 22 at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster.
Festival and Movies Only passes are available here. The festival schedule of 100 movies is available here. Check out the Plaza Classic Podcast here.
Academy Award, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-nominated writer, director, and producer Gregory Nava will appear at the 19th annual El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival, which runs July 16-26 in and around the historic Plaza Theatre in downtown El Paso.
The trailblazing Latino filmmaker will sit down for Q&As before Selena, his biopic about the “Queen of Tejano Music,” at 7 pm Friday, July 24, and El Norte, about the perilous immigration journey of Guatemalan siblings, at 3 pm Saturday, July 25. Both will be in the Plaza Theatre. He will receive the Plaza Classic Award for Career Achievement.
Tickets are $10 for each event, and go on sale June 22 at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster.
Nava, whose work has captured the American Latino experience, is considered one of the most influential and important Mexican American filmmakers today. Three of his films — El Norte, Selena and My Family/Mi Familia — have been selected by the Library of Congress’s National Registry for cultural and historical significance.
El Norte (1983) was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay. Nava followed it with the World War II film, A Time of Destiny (1988). The epic My Family/Mi Familia, released in 1995, followed generations of a Mexican American family and marked the film debut of Jennifer Lopez, who received a Golden Globe nomination for playing the title role in Selena (1997).
The Plaza Classic will have a free showing of My Family/Mi Familia at 1 pm Sunday, July 26 at the Mexican American Cultural Center (Nava will not appear at that screening).
Nava’s other films include Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998), about pop singer Frankie Lymon, and Bordertown (2006), about the femicides in Ciudad Juárez. He also co-wrote the Oscar-winning Frida Kahlo biopic Frida (2002). His television projects include American Family, the first dramatic Latino family series in the U.S., which Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.
The 19th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival will feature 100 movies, specials guests and more over 11 days. Among this year’s titles are Jurassic Park, All the President’s Men, Something’s Gotta Give, What’s Love Got to Do With It, The Sixth Sense, The Princess Bride, Bye Bye Birdie, Titanic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Taxi Driver, Nashville, Purple Rain, Scream, Disney’s Fantasia, a 100th anniversary screening of Clara Bow’s silent classic It, accompanied by Walt Strony on the theater’s original Wyler Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ, and our annual Local Flavor Showcase and Awards.
Tickets go on sale June 22 at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster. Festival passes are available at plazaclassic.com/tickets.
For more information, go to plazaclassic.com or call 915-533-4020.
The El Paso Community Foundation’s Plaza Classic Film Festival is accepting submissions for its ninth annual Local Flavor showcase and awards. More than $3,500 in cash prizes will be awarded.
First prize is $1,500, with a second prize of $1,000, $750 third prize, $250 audience favorite award, and a $100 student award for a college or high school student entry.
There is no cost to submit a film. It’s FREE. Entry deadline is 11:59 p.m. Monday, June 22, 2026.
It’s generously sponsored by the El Paso Film and Creative Industries Commission and the Texas Film Commission.
Local Flavor is accepting short and feature-length films. Works-in-progress will not be accepted. Projects must have been completed on or after January 1, 2025 and must be made locally, set locally, or have a connection of some kind to the El Paso-Juárez-Las Cruces area, which should be noted in the entry form’s synopsis window.
A panel of judges will select submissions for the Local Flavor showcase and awards in the Plaza Theatre on Sunday, July 26, the last day of the film festival. Awards will be announced at the end of the program.
Local Flavor will be curated by Emmy Award-winning Producer Javier Gonzalez of El Paso (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, In the Summers); Jaime Mendez, Ed.D, the UTEP Assistant Dean for Student Support and a longtime PCFF program advisory committee member; and Sophia Santos, a 2024 UCLA film school graduate from El Paso.
Go to the Local Flavor page to submit. Call 915-533-4020 or email local@plazaclassic.com for more information.
The Plaza Classic Film Festival returns for its 19th year July 16-26, 2026. Festival passes are on sale here.
Join us for the sixth season of the Plaza Classic Podcast, hosted by Lisa Elliott and Stephanie Valle.
They’re five episodes into the new season, which began last month with an interview with now departed El Paso Film Commissioner Drew Mayer-Oakes, who left earlier this year to take a similar position in Corpus Christi.
Film noir expert (and PCFF 2024 guest) Alan Rode is featured on the second episode of the season. The third episode highlights how teen dating violence is depicted in films with guest Aaron Setliff, the division chief of the protective order unit in the County Attorney’s office and board chair of the Center Against Sexual and Family Violence.
Episode 4 features PCFF contributor Rebecca Mendez of the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico discussing “What Rob Reiner Taught Us About Love” and the recently posted fifth episode features longtime PCFF contributor Jack Fields talking about his love of movies and how the NMSU grad gets to indulge that living in Los Angeles.
Lisa, Stephanie, Rebecca, and Jack are all members of the Plaza Classic Film Festival Program Advisory Committee, which helps plan and stage the film festival. The 19th annual PCFF will be July 16-26 in and around the historic Plaza Theatre. Passes are on sale now.
They’re back!
Buddy the Elf, Jack Skellington, George Bailey, Kevin McAllister, Santa Claus and the Grinch return for the El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival’s FREE Holiday Movies at the Plaza Theatre, part of the City of El Paso’s WinterFest.
Admission is FREE. No tickets are required.
The Plaza Classic will show six holiday favorites over three weekends. Audiences can enjoy holiday music played live on the theater’s original Wyler Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ 30 minutes before each movie.
The schedule is:
Sunday, November 30
3 pm: Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (PG)
5:30 pm: Home Alone (PG)
Sunday, December 7
2:30 pm: It’s a Wonderful Life (PG)
6 pm: Elf (PG)
Sunday, December 21
3 pm: The Polar Express (G)
6 pm: Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas (PG)
This is the 14th year the Plaza Classic will show holiday movies. It is part of the City of El Paso’s annual WinterFest, which runs November 22-January 4. WinterFest includes the specially decorated San Jacinto Plaza, The Rink at the convention center, and opens at 5 pm Saturday, November 22 with the Scherr Legate WinterFest Lights Parade and tree lighting ceremony at 5 pm at San Jacinto Plaza.
The 19th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival will be July 16-26, 2026 in and around the Plaza Theatre. Passes are on sale now here.
