Capra award steps up to bronze - Public invited to bronze pour for film festival's top award

FALLBROOK – Fallbrook sculptor Leo Lira Romero’s beautiful three-dimensional relief of the legendary film director Frank Capra will finally be cast in bronze on Saturday, Feb. 16. Created in 2010 for the top winning film for the Fallbrook Film Festival, it was then awarded to writer/director Michael Schroeder for his film “Man in the Chair.”

“We had no funds to turn it into bronze back then or for the 2011 festival either, so I cast it in poly resin and Kenny Adler stained it with shoe polish to give it a bronze look,” explained Romero.

In 2012, the film festival committee asked Fallbrook’s Brandon Roy, of the newly-formed California Sculpture Academy, if he would prepare dies for a bronze casting.

The bronze pour will take place Saturday, Feb. 16 at 5 p.m. at the rear of the (red) foundry building located at 300 E. Alvarado St., in Fallbrook. At 6 p.m., Roy will follow with an iron pour of other local artists’ works.

Ronald Shattuck and crew will be filming the pours for a short documentary, “The Making of the Frank Capra Award.” The public is invited to attend.