El Paso Independent Film Selected For 2022 Cannes Film Festival

Anyone who creates art of any form, they dream of having people both admire & acknowledge the hard work that went into creating that art. For a filmmaker, getting your movie shown at a film festival is certainly one way of getting your work shown to a wider audience.

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El Paso filmmaker Arturo Portillo has been making films for decades. Between 2016-2019, he spent timing working on his movie called "Beaten": a film that follows a hired hitman who partners with the man he was supposed to kill after he witnesses his fiancée murdered in front of her, & learns that the man he was supposed to kill is her brother.

The cast of Beaten consisted of many El Paso actors including:

• Hector Dez: you might recognize him in "Sincario, Day of the Dead" or as the "Insurance Guy" in the Michael Gopin tv commercials
• Frank Powers: He's had many smalls roles in The Avengers, Lone Survivor, Men Who Stare at Goats, with leading roles in movies like American War Fighter, Brothers James: Retribution & Radio Silence.
• Jerry Walker: Played Blitz in the movie Rogue Cell: Shadow Warrior. He made an appearance in Better Call Saul (S3E3: Sunk In Costs)
• Manny Rubio: Most known as Nieves in the FOX tv show Prison Break, & Dr. Michael Vidal in the movie Hands of God.
• & more

The movie was also shot entirely in the city of El Paso. As Arturo stated:

• "I wanted to show as many of the locations around El Paso as I could, showing the beauty from the sky & from the ground. I want to show the world that El Paso isn't just some dirt town with an adobe church somewhere off the highway like it's been depicted in some films"

After 3 years of hard work, & no funding whatsoever, it was finally released in 2019. Since its release, it has gotten many awards from the Florence Film Awards, the Pinnacle Film Awards, the New York Movie Awards in different categories like "Best Indie Feature Film" & "Best Director".

This past weekend, Arturo post on his Facebook that Beaten was selected to be shown at this year's Cannes Independent Film Festival, May 17th-28th.

If anyone wants to watch the movie Beaten, it IS uploaded on YouTube in its entirety.

(there is violence & strong language in the film so I recommend watching at home)

There's also the short film Arturo directed, Hexit Strategy, on YouTube as well. He's still working on movies & more projects coming soon.

I love seeing El Paso art being made & I especially love when someone FROM El Paso, gets noticed. Here's to more films from El Paso succeeding outside of the Sun City.