9th annual South Texas International Film Festival
The original idea for Edinburg’s South Texas International Film Festival sparked almost a decade ago. The city would show two to four classic Mexican films in the courtyard of Paseo del Prado in the evening. A conversation with the Mexican Consulate of McAllen transformed the initial thought into the STXIFF multiday film screening block, featuring industry talent, competitions and student workshops.
The City of Edinburg Cultural Arts Division hosts 84 events a year. It has seen hundreds of attendees turn into thousands in recent years. This year is the ninth annual film festival, featuring films from the Rio Grande Valley to Japan. STXIFF brings down celebrities and movie industry professionals to encourage the arts and inspire the community to get involved.
STXIFF Director of Operations Magdiel Castle said community support makes all the difference for city events.
“From the point of view of quality of life, we need something like this,” Castle said . “I hear a lot about ‘there’s-nothing-to-do-here’ type of thing. There’s a lot of things to do; we just need to go out and do them.”
This year will feature over 60 film screenings, panels and a pitch competition, all of which are free to the public. Saturday will feature workshops hosted by stuntwoman and stunt coordinator Jane Austin and Academy Award winner makeup artist and John Caglione Jr.
The events begin today with a pre-festival showing of Robert Rodriguez’ “El Mariachi” featuring the mariachi himself and executive producer Carlos Gallardo. It is followed by a showing of a new feature film “Where The Dead Go.”
Student Day is Thursday and kicks off the festivities with workshops in the morning and screening films made by UTRGV students in the afternoon.
Castle said supporting local talent is one of the main purposes of the festival.
“It’s one of the most important things that we do here,” Castle said. “It’s an international film festival, and when we started it, we started with the point in mind that we want to bring the film world to the Valley but also show the world what we’ve got. So, the more we have of our local showcases, the more that we help push our locals out into the world to be recognized.”
Castle said STXIFF emulates the Oscars by prioritizing the industry professionals they host and celebrating their achievements. The festival features a red carpet, mixer and several spotlights for locals and celebrities.
“When they come here, they get the red-carpet treatment and that goes for our locals and for the people who come here,” Castle said. “So, when they come here and they’re impressed, they tell everybody that the Edinburg film festival is the one that you need to be at. And slowly, I think that a lot more people from our locals are coming to our festival and realizing that it’s just as good as some of the other ones out there.”
He added the festival guests oftentimes take in all that the Valley has to offer and leave with a positive representation of the region.
“[They go to] the Island, and the pulga to try aguas frescas and tripas for the first time,” Castle said.
The Valley’s particular brand of Southern hospitality keeps special guests and industry talent coming back to the festival, according to the director.
“When they go out into the local community, those people don’t have to cater to them, but they’re just coming back telling us how friendly everybody was,” Castle said. “And that’s just the regular person in the Valley and they take that back with them: how friendly our region is, how welcoming our region is. And oftentimes, they tell us the way they feel when they’re here is probably not how most people feel when they go somewhere else because they feel welcomed and they feel safe.”
Films made by UTRGV students will be featured during Student Day at 6 p.m. Thursday. STXIFF will end Saturday.
