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Academy Award-winning actress Helen Hunt will receive the “Outstanding Achievement in Entertainment” award at the LCIFF VIP Party after a special screening of “As Good As It Gets” at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 10 followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience at the Allen Theatres Cineport 10 at 700 S Telshor Boulevard.
Source: NMSU Newsroom
Photo: Courtesy
The Las Cruces International Film Festival chose Academy Award-winning actress Helen Hunt to receive its “Outstanding Achievement in Entertainment” award at this year’s festival. The 10th annual LCIFF, April 9-13, is supported by New Mexico State University and Visit Las Cruces.
Hunt will receive the award at the LCIFF VIP Party after a special screening of “As Good As It Gets” at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 10, followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience at the Allen Theatres Cineport 10, 700 S. Telshor Blvd. Tickets for the celebrity screening of the film are $35. VIP tickets to attend the awards ceremony are $200 and are available now at www.lascrucesfilmfest.com.
“Helen Hunt is an extraordinary actress with incredible range. She has excelled in comedy, drama and everything in between,” said Ross Marks, LCIFF executive director and professor in NMSU’s Creative Media Institute. “She is the consummate entertainment professional whose success both in front of and behind the camera is remarkable. She is the perfect honoree to celebrate the film festival’s 10th year. It is a thrill for the Las Cruces International Film Festival to honor Helen Hunt at the 2025 film festival.”
An Oscar and Emmy award winner, Hunt has enjoyed a distinguished career not only as an award-winning actress but as an accomplished writer, director and producer. As an actress, her extensive and diverse body of work includes roles in film, theater and television. She won a “Best Actress” Oscar for her role in “As Good As It Gets,” for which she also won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award. For her role as Jamie Buchman in the television series “Mad About You,” Hunt earned four Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards (three as lead actress and one as Producer for Best Comedy), and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Her most recent films include “I See You” and “The Night Clerk.” Hunt is currently in production on a movie with Dustin Hoffman directed by Peter Greenaway.
Past recipients of the award include Ron Perlman, Giancarlo Esposito, William H. Macy, Danny Trejo, Brendan Fraser, George Lopez, Cybill Shepherd, Richard Dreyfuss and Edward James Olmos.
The five-day festival will screen more than 100 films this year, including narrative and documentary features, short films, animation and music videos from 50 different countries. The LCIFF will take place at the Allen Theatres Cineport 10. VIP passes are $200, All-Access Passes are $100, Day Passes are $35 and admission to celebrity screenings is $35. Tickets are available now at www.lascrucesfilmfest.com.
Discounted VIP passes will be on sale for $150 only at the upcoming LCIFF Poster Party from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, March 7, at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, 4100 Dripping Springs Road, where this year’s festival poster will be revealed.
When Marks founded the festival 10 years ago, he began teaching a class for NMSU students on how to produce a film festival. Since then, every year his students gain valuable experience working with him to produce the LCIFF. The event has drawn crowds of more than 12,000 attendees and more than 80,000 visitors to the region. It has grown to become the largest film festival in the country run by a university.
