Local Film in the Fest

Santa Barbara-based filmmaker Brent Winebrenner and local duo Suzanne Requejo and Montecito Journal scribe Leslie Westbrook are excited to have their 15-minute documentary, Voces de Old Town Carpinteria, have its premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival next month.

It features five older Carpinteria residents, including 103-year-old Josephine Villegas and narrator historian Dr. Jim Campos. The project focuses on the past history of a segregated Aliso Elementary School, including interviews with those who attended during that period. The film was created for the Latinx Arts Project (LAP) to help with fundraising and to inform about the town’s history and its future mural project.

The school segregation of “Mexicans Only” ended in 1947, prior to desegregation in the South.

Feelings About Small Stories

Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus debuted her latest project, You Hurt My Feelings, at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, at the weekend.

Montecito resident Julia, 62, stars in the comedy as a novelist whose marriage is upended after she hears her husband giving his honest reaction to her latest book.

“I believe in small stories about really big things,” she tells Variety about starring in the independent film directed by Nicole Holofcener.

Julia, who has won 11 Emmy awards for her work on Seinfeld, The New Adventures of Old Christine, and Veep, graces the cover of the Sundance issue of Variety.

Well deserved…