Looking SBIFF-y as the Festival Nears

With the start of the 41st annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival less than two weeks away as this issue hits newsstands, you’d think the folks over at SBIFF might be a little bit too busy to be booking special screenings. Nope. On January 29, a mere six days from opening night, the Riviera Theatre will show The Librarians, an important documentary about how the folks who run libraries are showing as “first responders in the fight for democracy,” standing firm against sweeping book bans across the U.S. that threaten our First Amendment rights by aiming to control the flow of ideas. The film focuses on how librarians are the first line of defense against the extremism fueling censorship efforts, facing down harassment, threats, and laws aimed at criminalizing their work. The screening will be followed by a conversation with director Kim A. Snyder. Visit https://sbifftheatres.com. 

Meanwhile the folks at the Fund for Santa Barbara have also been busy evaluating SBIFF’s Social Justice Film Series, a slate of six films that aim to educate and effect change in the areas of economic, environmental, political, racial, or social justice that will screen during the festival, furthering the concept that movies make movements happen. The Fund was slated to announce the winner on January 15 from among the half-dozen entries – all of which are well worth seeing – which cover the critical importance of investigative journalism (Steal This Story, Please!), the ongoing fight to address the devastating impacts of the fossil fuel industry (Gaslit; This is Not a Drill), the psychological toll of war and conflict (Cuba & Alaska), the rebuilding of urban environments degraded by structural racism (Saving Etting Street) and the historic abuse of native communities (What We Carry). The movies all mine the same theme that individual action can spur profound change. 

Elsewhere, the Carsey-Wolf Center at the Pollock Theatre at UCSB continues its cinematic capers with a screening of Billy Wilder’s 1950 classic film industry indictment Sunset Boulevard in a special 75th anniversary 4K using a surviving 35mm duplicate negative and an exceptional new 5.1 audio mix. Charlotte Barker, director of film restoration and preservation at Paramount Pictures, joins moderator Kelsey Moore of UCSB for a discussion following the January 22 screening… Filmmakers Yasha Levine and Rowan Wernham will be on hand for a discussion following a January 27 screening of Pistachio Wars, their 2024 doc that follows journalist Yasha Levine as he investigates a small-town water deal and uncovers a hidden side of California’s health-food industry personified by billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick of the Wonderful Company (Wonderful Pistachios, POM Wonderful, and Fiji Water). Shockingly it turns out the farmers own much of the state’s water, more than the entire city of Los Angeles, fueling the state’s growing climate injustices, from worsening droughts to increasingly destructive megafires. Visit www.carseywolf.ucsb.edu.