The 2026 Las Cruces International Film Festival will run from April 8th through the 12th.Special guests at this year’s festival include actors Michael Rooker, Steve Zahn, Kimberly Beck, Bruce Davison, as well as director Shane Black. Scott Brocato spoke with executive director Ross Marks about what to expect from this year’s film festival.
Scott Brocato:
I know what you're going to say because I've interviewed you many times: “(This year’s film festival) is going to be the biggest and best yet!”
Ross Marks:
(Laughs) Absolutely!
Scott Brocato:
So jump in and tell me why this will be the biggest and best yet.
Ross Marks:
First of all, it's going to be tough to make it the biggest and best, because our 10th anniversary was just amazing last year. We had our increase of 30% in attendance. and 3,000 out-of-state visitors. So it's really incredible.
So, this year, I think the way it's going to be bigger and better is our guests are incredible. You know, we've got our opening night film, “She Dances” with Steve Zahn; big Steve Zahn fan. So that's exciting.
Then the next night, we've got Michael Rooker screening “Guardians of the Galaxy 2,”big hit, big hit movie, and he's a big actor. And then Shane Black is coming in the next day. Shane Black, of course, wrote the Lethal Weapon movies and directed “The Nice Guys,” “Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang,” “Iron Man 3.” So a huge filmmaker, Shane Black. We're going to screen “The Nice Guys.”
And then actor Bruce Davidson, an Academy Award nominee, is going to be on Saturday. So every night there's a huge guest. And so I don't think we've ever had a festival with this kind of star power.
Scott Brocato:
Well, let's start with a guest. Let's start with Michael Rooker.
Ross Marks:
Well, you and I were talking a minute ago: when I was in film school, I saw “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer,” and it just stuck with me. It always has. That performance, you know, was so powerful, and I followed his career ever since. And the fact of the matter is that he and Ron Perlman share a manager. And several months ago--and this is one of the great things about being in business now 10, 11 years--is you've built a strong reputation. So Ron's manager reached out to me and said, “Ron told Michael (Rooker) that you guys have an amazing killer film festival, and Michael wants to come. Is there any way you could bring him in?” I said, wow, they're reaching out to me now. And then I was a big Michael Rooker fan. So I said, absolutely. So he actually kind of came to us.
Scott Brocato:
So the word is getting out.
Ross Marks:
The word is getting out !You know, the first year I did this, it was the first several years, it was very difficult to get guests, and we were lucky to get one or two guests. But now I get contacted all the time by the major agencies submitting guests that they want us to bring in, because the guests that we have had...
I mean, for example, Helen Hunt came in last year, and Helen Hunt's team at United Talent Agency had been reaching out: “What about this person? What about this person?” Because Helen came back and said, “This is the most amazing film festival I've ever been to.” So from Helen and Giancarlo Esposito's team would start reaching out from CAA.Soin the early days, they wouldn't return my calls or my emails and I'd have to beg to get somebody to come and have to get a friend of a friend of a friend. Now the big agencies are actually coming to us and saying, “We heard you have this great event. We'd like to have you bring our client in.”
Scott Brocato:
I know you've been wanting to get Steve Zahn out here. Sometimes it takes a while before it finally happens...
Ross Marks:
It does. It does.
Scott Brocato:
So why Steve Zahn? And talk about the opening night film.
Ross Marks:
So I've been trying to get Steve to come in for several years now, and it's just has never happened, never worked out. And Steve made this really great, heartfelt, beautiful, independent film called “She Dances.” So he, again, he came to us and said, “Hey, I made this great indie film. You're a great indie film festival. I think now's the time if you screen my film as opening night, I'll come in and I watch the film.” And it was beautiful. I mean, I cried. It was a really powerful film about art and dance and music. And Steve's performance is amazing. His daughter, Audrey Zahn, is amazing. So it just worked out. He had an independent film, so it made sense for him to come here. And of course, anytime we can elevate an independent filmmaker like Steve, we're going to do it.
Scott Brocato:
Now, who's going to do the Q&A this year? Michael Rooker or Steve Zahn?
Ross Marks:
So Michael will speak on campus Thursday (April 9), 2:00at the at the Medoff Theater. And then Steve will be here for opening night on April 8th at the Cineport.
Scott Brocato:
You're also going to have one of my other favorite actors, Bruce Davison. When is he going to be here?
Ross Marks:
So Bruce is going to be here April 11th .We're going to give him the Outstanding Achievement in Drama Award at our award show, 7pm at the Rio Grande Theater. And my first movie that I made in 1994--so I've been doing this a long, time--was a movie called “Homage.” And Bruce Davison was in the movie. And a friend of mine, a casting director I work with, who had been to our festival, was actually here last year. She said, “You should bring in Bruce. I was talking to Bruce. He loves you. He loves Las Cruces.” And I said, “my God, I definitely should bring in Bruce.” He's had such an incredible body of work. I haven't seen Bruce since I made the movie (in the 90s).So it's been almost 30 years since I've seen Bruce. But we connected and it was like it was yesterday and old times. And he's actually going to be part of a panel, a special panel we're doing on the 11th called Inside the World of Horror.
So we're going to have Bruce. Of course, “Willard,” a classic horror movie that he made. An actress named Kimberly Beck, who was in the very first “Friday, the 13th" movie. She was the heroine, the lone survivor. And then we're going to have a couple, a lead actress named Ashley Lawrence from “Hellraiser” and director Lucky McKee, and this incredible panel on Inside the World of Horror at the Rio Grande on the 11th.
Scott Brocato:
And Shane Black.
Ross Marks:
And Shane Black will be here on the 10th. So he'll come to the 10th, he's going to speak at Cineport. We're going to do a little conversation with Shane Black at the theatre, and then that night screen his movie, “The Nice Guys,” and then give him the Outstanding Filmmaker Award.
Scott Brocato:
And what other highlights that'll be part of this year's festival?
Ross Marks:
We've got some amazing movies. This is the most--let's just say, why is it bigger and better? We program--which I didn't think was possible--we programmed more movies this year than ever before: 168 from over 30 different countries. And the cool, fun thing that I'm excited about is we added a venue. So in addition to screening at the Allen Theatre’s Cineport, we're going to screen at the Fountain Theatre. So we're going to have movies screening at the Fountain Theatre. So we're really bringing the whole kind of southern New Mexico film community together. We've got a couple great films at the Fountain. The Fountain Theater, of course, home to great independent films. and they're now going to be part of our festival. So that's exciting.
Scott Brocato:
And there's a big kickoff with the poster party, the poster reveal party that is happening March 6th...
Ross Marks:
Yes.
Scott Brocato:
...at 5:30pm at the Farm and Ranch Museum. Talk about the artist and what you can reveal about the poster that will be revealed that night.
Ross Marks:
So the artist is Asiah Thomas-Mandlman. She's an NMSU grad. She's a Las Cruces, born and raised resident here. I've known about Asiah and her work for quite some time. So I reached out and asked if she would do the artwork.
And you know, after 11 years, what can you do differently? You know, we've had oil on canvas. We've had photography. We've had graffiti art. We've had tattoo artists. We have so many wonderful artists. But Asiah, I've seen the artwork. It blew me away. I mean, it was totally something different and unique that I would never thought of. It has a really powerful kind of cinematic presence, the work of art. And I think people are going to be really impressed with this artwork. It really blew me away. I was like, wow, I would never have thought to have that as a work of art. But it's just lovely and powerful and again, cinematic. And so she'll be at the poster party March 6th.
We have limited edition prints, which are only available at the poster parties. She signs them. I know there's dozens and dozens of people that I know of in town that have collected all now 11 posters. And it's really exciting. It's the kickoff with discounted VIP tickets. We sell VIP tickets at $150. Normally they're $200. We're going to have music. We're going to auction off the original artwork. We're going to have drinks, food. Should be a great time.
Scott Brocato:
Well, before we give information on how people can get tickets, talk about the new film that you've been filming. Have you finished it? It's a war film?
Ross Marks:
Yeah, actually. So I just finished producing a film called “Counterstrike.” We actually wrapped last week. It's a Michael Jai White military action-adventure, unlike anything I've ever done. I've mostly done kind of small intimate dramas or, you know, a faith-based film; I just did a Christmas rom-com. I did do a horror movie with Al Pacino last year, so that was different. But this one was high body count. We had over 100 people that were “killed” in the movie.
But it's really kind of a pro-military action-adventure film. Michael Jai White--great guy, known for his action films, films like “Black Dynamite.” Of course, he played Mike Tyson in the Tyson movie. So Michael was here, and we had about probably 20 NMSU students working on the film as interns, which is always the motivation for me to make these films, is to give our students kind of real-world and experiential learning opportunities. And I think it's going to do well. It'll come out in November, "Counterstrike.”
Scott Brocato:
All right--now, where can people get tickets and passes for this year's film festival?
Ross Marks:
So everything is at www.lascrucesfilmfest.com. That's lascrucesfilmfest.com. You can get tickets to the festival. You can get poster party tickets. You can read all our press releases about our special guests. The schedule will be up, what film will screen, when and where. And everything is on our website.
