White Sands Film Festival 2011

Lifetime Achievement Award

Story and Photos by Sandi Prusik

Val Kilmer attended the White Sands International Film Festival in Las Cruces, New Mexico on Friday August 26, 2011 where he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement award.  I was fortunate enough to be able to attend.

The events with Val started with a screening of The Doors either at 6 or 6:30 PM. Val was there to introduce both showings.  I was at the 6PM one.  The venue was a mall theater.  And it was disappointing to see that a “film” festival did not bother to obtain an actual film copy of the movie.  They merely played the Blu-ray disc   resulting in poorer quality viewing.  Hoping to finally see on the big screen a movie I had missed when it was originally released, it felt tacky and disappointing.   Val noticed and commented that apparently we weren’t at a film festival but at a DVD festival.  Val slipped out and went to the other theater to introduce the movie there too.  At the second showing he did a Q& A session after the movie. Val was told that we were going to be notified to move to the other theater so we could all be together for the Q&A. Unfortunately the festival people did not follow through with that plan.  We sat in our theater through the credits and the lights coming on and the cleaning crew wondering why we had not left the theater.  But no one told us to go to the other theater down the hall, so we wrongly assumed that there would be no Q&A after all and we missed it.  It was disappointing for half the people attending the Doors screening event, and we thought Val just didn’t bother with the Q& A event at all. 

Next appearance was at the Preston Contemporary Art Center in Mesilla that evening.  When Val arrived he mixed and mingled with the waiting crowd and patiently posed for photos with everyone who asked.  After awhile some people moved out to the outdoor sculpture courtyard where the award ceremony was going to be held.  Val finding a couple of friends also slipped out there to a quiet corner hoping to visit with his friends. Followed by photographers who were relentless with their flash bulbs, he politely asked for a few minutes with no photos to give his eyes a break from the flashes but no one heeded his request. Festival staff members were in the crowd and not one spoke up to assist Val with the problem.   He asked one of his friends to please ask one photographer who was taking so many photos his flash was going off like a strobe light right in Val’s face to please stop for a few minutes.  I overheard the conversation. The photographer was politely asked to cease because Val was getting ill from his flashing light.  The photographer got rather belligerent, saying he was not photographing Val but taking pictures of the art around Val.  In response he got even more aggressive with his camera.  Val finally got up and taking his friends with him he found a small private staff room and he retreated there away from the camera wielding party-goers.  When the man in charge of the event went to get him for the award ceremony Val asked him to delay for a few minutes so he could recover from the flash bulbs as he was blinded by them and not feeling very well.  The award ceremony itself was planned for that outdoor courtyard.  Too many people were packed into the heat of that small area standing squished in like sardines.  Val had a speech prepared, but he decided due to the uncomfortable venue to confine his speech to a few brief remarks so as not to make the audience too miserable.  Of course the flash bulbs continued during the ceremony.  I was disappointed the festival staff did not assist Val and make an announcement about the effect of their flash bulbs on Val.  Afterwards Val retreated back to the small private room he had found in an attempt to recover and not because he wanted to avoid the party. The festival staff were aware Val was struggling, had they spoken up and prevented the crowd from using cameras that flash Val would probably have mixed more with the partygoers and stayed longer. I had a great time at the party and he did his best to see as many people as possible.

Val had told the film festival officials in advance that he had to leave on Friday night after the party because he had pressing business to attend to over that weekend. Nonetheless they scheduled a showing of Tombstone in the theater for Saturday noon and announced a conversation with Val to follow it.  Val was not there to attend that event.  It was another DVD showing of his movie.   They used the Blu-ray disc, which sadly is not as complete as the director’s cut DVD version.  Scheduling this when they knew in advance that it would not happen and Val would not be available to attend put Val in a bad light with some in the audience who felt stood up. 

I very much enjoyed the events I attended.  Val looked wonderful and was in a great mood all smiles and friendliness towards everyone.  I did not want to write this so critical of the film festival planning staff, but there is no way to tell it honestly without sounding critical, there were many mistakes.  I have attended other film festivals honoring Val.   They provided him with a camera-free event where no one dared use a flash because they were warned their camera would be confiscated if they did.  And this other film festival set up chairs in a comfortable room for the award event.  The art gallery where the Las Cruces event was held had several large air-conditioned rooms that could have hosted the actual award ceremony better than the hot stuffy patio they chose with no seating at all.  I’m annoyed by these mistakes because they reflected in a negative way on Val.  He did all he could to please everyone within the limits of the bad situation he was given.   

However I am definitely glad that I was able to attend.