All in Features
LAS CRUCES – During the COVID-19 pandemic, most industries have been disrupted. Many things are difficult in the current environment. Making a film in New Mexico may be among the hardest.
Nevertheless, four New Mexico filmmakers have a story to tell. And they’re eager to tell it.
LAS CRUCES – Even during this once-in-a-century pandemic, we’ve all had to visit the grocery store. But how much thought have you given to the people responsible for transporting the items that fill your shopping cart?
Long-haul truckers are, obviously, essential employees during the COVID-19 crisis. A few weeks ago, I spent some time talking to one about his experience during the current pandemic.
“I feel like I should tell you that I’ve retired — and I haven’t really told a lot of people, because I had planned on going back when all of this settles in, and I can do some double-dipping,” Dinsmore told me on Friday. “I really am enjoying what I was doing, but I was not ready to go back.”
LAS CRUCES – It came on suddenly. One day, Sergio Vasquez was not feeling well. The next, he was hospitalized at Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso, isolated from those who cared for him most. It was COVID-19. On Sunday, June 21, he died.
LAS CRUCES — Eddie Bernal is tough. The retired 81-year-old correctional officer — who now splits his time between Las Cruces and his ranch in Mexico — has just recovered from COVID-19 disease.
LAS CRUCES – Five weeks after COVID-19 prompted the shutdown of New York City, Amer Jandali sat in his Brooklyn apartment, gazing down on the city’s empty streets. It was April 28 — five days into Ramadan — and Amer, who is Muslim, was sipping tea and enjoying a post-fast snack of peanut butter and apples.
“It feels like a movie,” he said.
CORONA, N.M. - Last Wednesday, I went for a drive. After leaving Las Cruces and driving to Tularosa, I headed north through the sagebrush, juniper, creosote and what might have been skunkbush sumac, Mexican poppies or yellow-flower purslane — or maybe Todson’s pennyroyal — nestled between the rolling hills of the Tularosa Basin.
There was chemistry on the stage Saturday afternoon at the Rio Grande Theatre as the Las Cruces International Film Festival broke bad.
The theater was nearly full of film lovers and fans of “Breaking Bad,” AMC’s Emmy Award-winning television series. The wildly popular show, which ended in 2013, was filmed and took place in and around Albuquerque.
They say it’s impossible to find Fenn’s gold on the first try. On Memorial Day weekend, we set out to prove them wrong.
