EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – With nearly 70 films showing at this year’s El Paso Media Festival, the audience got to enjoy the works of local filmmakers and the company of some of them, including the headliner from a cult classic.

Greg Sestero made an appearance on the closing night of EPMF to present his new horror film “The Christmas Tapes.”

Sestero is best known for his role as Mark in the cult classic “The Room” and said that the legacy of this film follows him to this day.

“It’s taken me 20 years to try to figure out what’s there. I still can’t quite get it. But there’s something in that movie that people really like and after 20 years,” he said.

“I mean you you’re in a movie that people call like, really terrible, really bizarre, but there’s something so enjoyable in it that I just came to appreciate whatever it is.”

Sestero recently finished shooting a film in Socorro with Chris Hanna, organizer of the festival, called “On the Edge of Freedom”.

In his new role, Sestero got to put on a cowboy hat and ride a horse.

 “I play a cowboy who’s trying to take care of this guy who got hooked on drugs and I’m trying to help him, you know, send him to the right direction. And I do that through riding horses and chores,” he explained.

“I’ve always loved westerns and getting a chance to wear a cowboy hat and film in Texas was a pretty fun experience.”

He announced he plans on shooting a UFO film in El Paso sometime later this year.

Chris Hanna and Daniel Valdez, organizers of the festival, have been gathering a variety of shorts, features and documentaries to showcase at their festival that is celebrating its fourth year of existence.

El Paso Media Festival was held from Friday through Sunday, Feb. 3-5 at the Alamo Drafthouse East.

“This year, the quality was so great with El Paso filmmakers that we gave them their own block. Usually, we will put them with Texas films, but this year, we got to show love to our hometown El Paso and show how much they’ve grown as filmmakers,” Hanna said.

What makes this film festival unique, Hanna and Valdez explained, is the educational part consisting of different panels and workshops led by filmmakers and people from the film industry.

“We have a lot of amazing festivals already here in the region and Las Cruces and El Paso, but we always felt like we were missing the educational part of the festival,” Hanna explained adding that they are “not only showing incredible regional and Texas and U.S. films or all over the world films, but also educating the public and the rising filmmakers.”

You can find the program and tickets on El Paso Media Fest’s website.

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