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Las Cruces City Council Votes To Fund Film Las Cruces

In a unanimous vote by the Las Cruces city council this week, council voted to give close to $300,000 to the non-profit Film Las Cruces in order to set up a film office in Las Cruces.

Film Las Cruces is a new non-profit, formally know as the Regional Film Development Advisory committee, and has been working to strengthen opportunity for the film industry in Las Cruces for the last 3 years.

Chairman of the board, and one of the founding members, State Representative Jeff Steinborn says the new funding from the city will drastically help their effort.

“We have to do significant worker training,” Steinborn said. “We have to create a location database. We’re working with our universities, which we are, so we’ve kind of laid that foundation, but we are also volunteers. And you know towns that are serious about growing their film business have paid staff, and our town has kind of dabbled in that for a number of years, so really it’s about shifting resources over to a group of people, who are really working on this in a comprehensive way, which we are.”

Steinborn says Film Las Cruces is the right group to oversee the city’s money in creating a film office because of the work they’ve already accomplished.

“We have moved the conversation significantly,” Steinborn said. “We’ve raised almost a million dollars from the state of New Mexico to build infrastructure here in the name of a soundstage. But really, understanding what makes a successful film town there’s a lot that goes into it. There’s a big job to help capitalize on our advantages here in Las Cruces to turn us into that.”

The New Mexico Film Office recently reported close to $300 million was brought into the state by the film industry in the past year, with most of the money in Northern New Mexico. Steinborn says Southern New Mexico can compete.

“There’s only so much studio space available in Southern New Mexico,” Steinborn said. “So, what we’re talking about doing here is adding capacity, we’re also talking about building the first purpose built film-studio in the southern part of the state. Where we have good weather all year round, where we have unique locations. So, we have assets that will give us opportunities to recruit film business here, and so in those areas, we are instantly competitive.”

The possibility of a soundstage has been talked about for a while in Las Cruces, and Steinborn says it isn’t too far away.

“It may be closer than we assume,” Steinborn said. “But we still have more analysis that we are doing on the planning of that facility, and working on the financial aspects of it as well. But we’re not talking years and years away, we’re talking, hopefully if we’re successful in the next year or so.”

Steinborn says they are looking to receive addition economic development money from the city for the soundstage, as well as working with university partners.

Samantha Sonner was a multimedia reporter for KRWG- TV/FM.