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Huge Grants>Hugh Grant
The nonprofit Santa Fe Film Institute (being the nonprofit that presents the Santa Fe International Film Festival, which you maybe knew previously as the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival) recently did its annual granting thing from which numerous New Mexico filmmakers get a few bucks to keep on making films. This year heralds roughly $25,000 in grants, which is no small amount for fledgling types, and the 2024 cohort of grantees includes Makaio Frazier, who picked up the $9,000 Los Luceros grant for filmmakers who include the Los Luceros historic site in their projects; Casiano Andrés Salazar, who earned the $4,000 Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area grant for a project about hoop dancing; Zoe Colfax for her film on the tragically under-known town of Blackdom, New Mexico; and Amanda Erickson, who picked up $5,000 for her upcoming documentary She Cried That Day about Native women and allies working to combat the Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives Crisis. Three out-of-staters also received grants, but we’re here more for the New Mexico people than we are for Colorado and Texas people. Sorry, Colorado and Texas people—we love locals.
Not Just for movies anymore
Having recently attended the Authors on Authors event between George “Really Rad” Martin and Josh “No Nickname” Gad at the Jean Cocteau Cinema, we can tell you firsthand that there is much afoot in the non-film realm at the little movie theater. Why put this information in a section about films, though? Because we just love comedian Carlos Medina’s All Fierce Comedy Show that much. If you’re from New Mexico, you’ve gotta see this guy, and his long-standing relationship with the ol’ JCC feels so nice. Catch Medina making the yuks at 7 pm on Thursday, Sept. 26—just make sure you look into tickets before then, as these shows tend to sell out pretty fast.
That Version of Dracula Still Sucks, Though
With this week’s release of the new Francis Ford Coppola flick Megalopolis delighting...we don’t know who (our dad or someone like that), Violet Crown Cinema is getting all Coppola’d out with screenings of movies like The Outsiders and Apocalypse Now and The Godfather. And though we find it weird that the Megalopolis campaign besmirches critics who thought Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula sucked—it’s like they’re trying to make any early reviews look stupid because some of his movies wind up with cult clout years after release—it’s not nearly as weird as the new film’s multi-minute trailer that literally tells us nothing about it whatsoever. Just saying.
