Francisco Menendez began making movies at the age of nine in his native country of El Salvador. In the Spring of 1984, he took a break from his undergraduate work to return to El Salvador as a stringer for Time Magazine and a liaison for Jane Wallace of CBS News. In 1985, Menendez won the Dore Schary Award for his documentary Los Niños: Thinking About Others, about the challenging lives of Mexican children along the U.S. border. Honored as Outstanding Graduate of the year at the University of Puget Sound in 1985, Menendez received his M.F.A. in Film and Video at California Institute of the Arts in 1989. At Cal Arts, he was a teaching assistant for three years to Oscar-nominated filmmaker Alexander Mackendrick, who served as his mentor. Menendez then worked as a casting associate for Pagano/Bialy Casting, and ran their office on the 20th Century Fox lot. He also served as Assistant Editor to Kris Malkiewicz for the revised edition of the book Cinematography. Menendez joined the faculty of UNLV in 1990 and served as the chair of the Department of Film since 2000. At UNLV, he created their production and screenwriting sequences, designed their non-linear lab facilities and began their Professional Film Crew Training Program. His areas of research are narrative theory, new technologies and the restoration of Central American films. In 2000, Menendez was award ed the Rita Deanin Abbey Teacher of the Year. In 2001, his short feature Medio Tiempo won the Showtime Latino Filmmaker Award , airing nationally on the Showtime cable network. Menendez was honored in 2001 with the Trustee Award for his commitment to education and his involvement in film production in the state of Nevada.
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There's a dark side behind the bright lights of Las Vegas, where desperate lives and busted dreams struggle in the shadows to survive. And when a sleazy casino owner swipes $20 million from his employees' health insurance and pension funds, ex-pro-baseball-player-turned-casino-electrician Nick and his co-workers put together a daring plan to steal the money back. But in a lowdown town of underground cage fights, smoky strip clubs and deadly double-crosses, can the perfect heist ever go as planned?