ELECTRA (KFDX/KJTL) — After last year’s successful introduction, Electra is once again ready for filmmakers from all over to descend upon the Electra Grand Theatre for a three-day film festival showing a select number of films.

The Cowpokes International Film Festival is getting global recognition.

“I mean, we probably had over 160 submission this year, and a lot of them were foreign films, so maybe 10 percent of them were selected,” Co-Director of Cowpokes Int’l Film Festival Rock Whitehead said.

For the second straight year, the stars are shining a little brighter in Electra.

“The longer this film festival goes on, the more excitement that people get and get more submissions every year, and it gets bigger every year,” Whitehead said.

Hundreds of movies will be shown at the historic Electra Grand Theatre over a three-day period, bringing in folks from all over, like Carl Flood from South Pasadena, California, who wrote and directed a Western titled “tHe uNspoken bAdge”.

“I’m here for two films, one I wrote and directed – it’s a Western – and the other is a film noir that I acted in,” Flood said.

Flood adds that getting involved with passionate festival directors, like Rock and Brenda Whitehead, is a perfect recipe for drawing in filmmakers.

“It’s always exciting to see your movie on the big screen, especially with an audience,” Flood said. “You know, my family is coming down. You know we love to support these small, now historic, places.”

As Whitehead mentioned, submissions came from all over the world, with a German filmmaker traveling more than 5,000 miles for her premiere.

For years to come, they want filmmakers to continue traveling to Electra.

“We want to continue this every year and keep going and going,” Whitehead said. “This will be our first year of the Cowpokes of the Year award; not many people know about that, but they will now. There’s a lot of stuff going on in Electra this weekend; they’ve got a fair going on, a barbeque going on, there’s a lot of food trucks, it’s going to be a great weekend here.”

There are plenty of one-of-a-kind original movies like “tHe uNspoken bAdge”. Find the full list of films showing the rest of the weekend here.