John Valadez, along with Cristina Ibarra, is the co-director of The Last Conquistador. After the film aired on July 15, viewers wrote in with questions for John and Cristina on the POV Blog. Read on as John answers questions about John Houser, handling angry reactions from viewers and what’s happening in El Paso now. Anne […]

Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup. Today, he raises some questions that came to mind as he watched the most recent POV film. So, I’ll repeat what I said in my Monday post that I think The Last Conquistador is a really good […]

It sounded like a perfect partnership. Renowned sculptor John Houser dreamed of building the world’s tallest bronze equestrian statue, a stunning monument to the Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate that would pay tribute to the contributions Hispanic people made to building the American West. The city of El Paso, Texas, was looking to improve its […]

When John J. Valadez and Cristina Ibarra, learned that the city of El Paso had commissioned a sculptor to create a statue of Juan de Oñate, they knew they wanted to document the controversial public arts project that had come to be seen as a monument to culture by some, and as a glorification of […]

Today, we continue looking ahead to our upcoming season. On Tuesday, July 15, POV will broadcast The Last Conquistador, by John Valadez and Cristina Ibarra. Renowned sculptor John Houser has a dream: to build the world’s tallest bronze equestrian statue for the city of El Paso, Texas. He envisions a stunning monument to the Spanish […]