Tag archives: Santa Barbara International Film Festival
We also spoke with Michael Love, the veteran screenwriter (he authored the screenplay for the Academy Award-nominated, Gaby: A True Story, in 1987) and director with dozens of credits to his name, including multiple short docs and a few features that have premiered at SBIFF over the years. His 2021 entry, Dist-Dance, chronicles the ecstatic […]
In one of those quirky COVID coincidences, Metropolitan Theatres is reopening its doors just as the Santa Barbara International Film Festival is about to get underway with a hybrid virtual/drive-in edition. Nine days after the county moved back into the red tier, movie theaters will be allowed to open indoors at 25 percent capacity or […]
Over its 36-year history, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival has had to deal with challenges such as raising funds to keep the fest afloat in the early days; pivoting quickly following the departure of its new executive director after a single season at the helm; and erecting barricades to hold back the masses when […]
Ed Lister, who is known in both Los Angeles and Santa Barbara as a skilled scenic artist with credits in the theater credits and mural making, has created a series of vibrant abstract silk screen prints, or serigraphs. They were made starting in the early 1970s while he was teaching printmaking at the Chelsea School […]
Earlier in February, UCSB Arts & Lectures hosted the MacArthur Foundation “Genius Award” playwright-actress Anna Deavere Smith as part of its virtual Race to Justice series. The university’s Department of Theater and Dance closes out the month with a production of Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Other Identities, Smith’s groundbreaking one-woman show […]
You could say that Robin Gerber has had a backwards career. After working as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and then serving as a well-paid Congressional lobbyist for trade unions for 15 years, Gerber, experiencing self-described burnout, junked it all for a life as a writer for newspapers and magazines. Then her mentor suggested she […]
I don’t know if it means anything that my phone went dead just after I asked Allison Janney about White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. There was a long pause. Some laughter. Then she said, “Oh boy, oh dear. I don’t know how anyone could want to be …” Janney, of course, is the […]
SBIFF’s first Film Talk of the year features Paul Walter Hauser, who got his start as a stand-up comedian before turning to acting where he has enjoyed a number of noteworthy roles. In addition to a litany of TV series guest shots and a few recurring roles, he proved a scene stealer at the movies […]
If you haven’t yet checked out The Queen’s Gambit, deservedly one of the top-ranked shows on Netflix and one of the best original series in the streaming service’s catalog, now would be a good time to get started on the seven-episode series about a chess prodigy turned accomplished if tortured young woman. That’s because Scott […]
Although there is still a dispute over whether it was Napoleon or Adam Smith who coined the phrase “The British are a nation of shopkeepers,” there is no dispute that beekeepers in Santa Barbara want to convince us that America is a “nation of beekeepers.” The Beelievers, a short documentary made by UCSB graduate filmmaker […]
Whales Without Walls, which screened at the 2020 Santa Barbara International Film Festival this past winter, is essentially a five-minute argument for a modern real-life solution to the issues that were addressed in the fiction film Free Willy. The mission of the Whale Sanctuary Project is to establish a model seaside sanctuary where whales and […]
Santa Barbara International Film Festival Film Talk finds its way to the Montecito hills for a viewing and discussion of The Garden is Singing, Karen Kasaba’s 11-minute paean to Ganna Walska’s Lotusland that screened as part of the 2019 film festival. Singing does a credible job of capturing the beauty, diversity, history, and breadth of […]
COVID-19 has certainly crushed a lot of dreams since forcing a shutdown back in March. But it’s also had a silver lining or two: After having closed its doors, supposedly forever, just a little more than a year ago, the Westwind Drive-In movie theater reopened a couple of weeks back, and immediately became a desired […]
Film is a medium that lends itself perfectly to streaming and other methods of home delivery, perhaps a perfectly-placed panacea during the pandemic, entertainment-wise at least. No one needs an introduction to Netflix, Amazon Prime and the like, but perhaps some prodding is in order to visit our local cinematic specialists. The Santa Barbara International […]
Amazing Grace, the locally-made documentary about Grace Fisher, a 17-year-old dancer, cellist, pianist, and guitarist who contracted a rare polio-like disease that left her a quadriplegic, gets an encore screening at the Marjorie Luke this weekend. Encouraged by her mentors including Justin Hurwitz (the Montecito-raised Academy Award winning composer of the La La Land soundtrack) […]
With SBIFF barely six weeks gone, the time seems ripe for more film fests to find local favor, as three different offerings arrive in town this week. The fifth annual Santa Barbara Jewish Film Festival since the event was resurrected by the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara takes place March 11-15 at the New […]
The red carpets have all been rolled back up, the klieg lights turned off, and filmmakers have gone on to the next festival along with their movies. But there’s still one final freebie for local film lovers before SBIFF calls it quits on its 35th festival. That would be the Third Weekend screenings, which although […]
It had to be the biggest night ever for the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) and I’ve been to all 34. This was the evening they honored Brad Pitt with the Maltin Modern Master Award. As I approached the Arlington Theatre the street had been blocked off and there were solid people clear across […]
There are just three days left in SBIFF 35, and with all of the tribute evenings being front-loaded at this year’s festival, no more stars walking the red carpet. Unless you are an advocate of the auteur theory, that is, in which case there’s one more big event on the SBIFF slate in the annual […]
Writer-director-producer Jason Wise – whose previous documentaries include the much-lauded SOMM trilogy, had little idea what he was in for when he started making his latest film, The Delicacy, about Santa Barbara’s urchin diving industry. “Urchin is my favorite food, and I wanted to spend more time up there,” said the L.A. resident who did […]
