Charles Horak

Charles Horak didn't sleep much as a child, preferring instead to watch movies on late night TV. Not much has changed since then, except that he now shares his life-long passion for movies with others. Horak's association with On Film began in the summer of 2002 when he was interviewed by the show's originator, Cynthia Haines. In the summer of 2005, Horak took over for Haines as host of the show.

Since 1996, Horak and his family have lived in his hometown of El Paso, Texas. He is vice president of a family-owned construction and development firm.

Thanks to On Film, and some fine folks he’s met along the way, Horak has been involved with a number of film initiatives and organizations.

He is a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (www.bfca.org), was awarded a fellowship to the 2007 Moving Image Institute in Film Criticism and his 2008 reviews of Shine A Light, Hellboy II and Iron Man were nominated for an Entertainment Journalism award by the Los Angeles Press Club (thankfully Kenneth Turan won).

In 2002, Horak founded The Film Salon (www.filmsalon.org), a monthly film series devoted to the screening and discussion of classic and important films from the last century.

In 2003, along with local film historian Jay Duncan, Horak founded the IT! Came From the ‘50s Film Festival which ran four wonderful years at the Chamizal National Memorial.

In 2008, Horak helped found and became the artistic director of the Plaza Classic Film Festival (www.plazaclassic.org) in El Paso. The Plaza Classic is the world’s largest film festival dedicated to the presentation of classic films and is centered around El Paso’s premier movie palace – the Plaza Theatre. The Festival drew more than 30,000 attendees in its first year, and continues to grow in every way.

Charles Horak is the father of three budding cinephiles and husband of Dr. Ann Branan Horak, professor of English, Religious Studies and Women’s Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso.