NatureTrack Film Festival and More Focus on Film 

The 7th Annual NatureTrack Film Festival, a celebration of nature and outdoor adventure through film, returns October 9-10 to kick off a year-long celebration of nature, adventure, and environmental stewardship that marks NatureTrack Foundation’s 15th anniversary year. The new slimmed-down format begins with a special opening night event at the Riviera Theatre that has already sold out. But plenty of tickets remain available for Friday evening’s main event, when NTFF takes over three screens at Metropolitan Camino Real Cinemas in Goleta, each showing two blocks of mostly shorts in a variety of genres, including world premieres and a couple of full-length features. The Festival Bonus Pass not only includes priority seating but also admission to the John Muir Laws Nature Journaling Workshop that afternoon in Skofield Park. Visit https://naturetrackfilmfestival.org.

The 4th Annual Ceylon International Film Festival 2025 presents free screenings daily from October 14-16, showcasing cinematic stories by unique voices from around the world starting at 2 pm daily at Direct Relief’s Hatch Hall. Closing Night takes place Friday, October 17, featuring a ticketed Awards Night and a cultural experience that includes a dinner reception provided by Taqueria La Unica & Masala Spice, a reception with filmmakers and guests, and a screening of Tsunami from Sri Lanka. Visit www.ceyiff.com. 

UCSB Arts & Lectures Thematic Learning Initiative launches a new season of free events, “Paradigms at Play,” with a screening of The Last Class at Campbell Hall on Thursday, October 9. A cinematic documentary love letter to education, the film is a nuanced and deeply personal portrait of former labor secretary Robert Reich as he teaches his final course and reflects on a period of immense personal and global transformation. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Elliot Kirschner and executive producer Heather Kinlaw Lofthouse, moderated by Alice O’Connor, director of the UCSB Blum Center on Poverty, Inequality and Democracy. Reserve free tickets at https://artsandlectures.ucsb.edu/events-tickets/events/25-26/the-last-class.

The CWC Presents Connectivity series has slated three screening and discussion events this week at the Pollock Theater. Familiar Touch, the debut feature from writer-director Sarah Friedland, a sensitive coming-of-old-age film inspired by her experiences as a caregiver, choreographer, and dance filmmaker, gets a Q&A with Friedland on October 9. Anna Ouyang Moench, an award-winning playwright and screenwriter whose credits include Writers Guild Awards, talks about the “Woe’s Hollow” episode of the Apple TV+ series Severance, after it plays on October 14. Ecocentric filmmaker Philip Hoffman presents three of his shorts – Deep 1, vulture, and endings before discussing his work on October 16. Reserve free tickets at www.carseywolf.ucsb.edu/pollock-events.

Spike Lee is coming to the Riviera Theatre for a SBIFF Cinema Society screening of Highest 2 Lowest, his (and screenwriter Alan Fox) Apple TV+ crime thriller film remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 classic High and Low, which was based on the 1959 American novel King’s Ransom by Ed McBain. The film is Lee’s first collaboration with actor Denzel Washington in almost 20 years. Visit www.sbiff.org.