Tag archives: Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Although the project was 10 years in the making, director Paul Lamont remembers exactly why he wanted to make The Songpoet, his nearly two-hour exploration of the conflicts of career, family, ego, relationships, and sheer talent vs. achievement that have propelled the great American singer-songwriter Eric Andersen through his half-century-plus career. It was a moment […]

Santa Barbara International Film Festival has hired veteran Benjamin Goedert as its new development director. In his new role, Goedert will be responsible for generating funds to support the fest’s dynamic arts and educational programs through sponsorships, grants and donations. He moved to our tony town 11 years ago to attend City College where he […]

Tony Award-winning actress/singer Kristin Chenoweth has no illusions about who she is and what she can do. Blessed with a brilliant voice, plucky determination, and such a bubbly personality that The Daily Beast called her “the human version of just-popped champagne,” Chenoweth has soared on Broadway as Glinda in Wicked, and earned accolades, Emmy awards […]

Watching David Crosby: Remember My Name at a SBIFF screening at a sold-out Lobero Theatre back on Super Bowl Sunday last February 3 was a thrilling but almost excruciating experience, made even more so knowing that the aging Santa Barbara-raised rock star was seated just a few rows away, watching himself sing, and squirm, on […]

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) has expanded to include a 3,600 sq. ft. space at 1313 State Street to be called the Barbakow Family Center for Film Studies or just the Education Center. A place to create and learn thanks to Jeff and Margo Barbakow’s generous support. As executive director Roger Durling showed […]

President Donald Trump‘s three-day state visit to the U.K. to meet with Queen Elizabeth and other members of the Royal Family, as well as celebrating the 75th anniversary of D-Day, brought KEYT-TV anchor Beth Farnsworth to Maison Mineards Montecito for an interview in my cottage garden. The visit by Trump and his willowy wife Melania […]

Cinephiles were out in force when mayor Cathy Murillo opened the Barbakow Family Center for Film Studies, just a tiara’s toss from the Arlington Theatre. The 3,600 sq. ft. space, formerly the administrative offices of the Granada Theatre, now relocated to the theatre building a block or two down State Street, consists of seven classrooms, […]

The show business adage is never follow children or a dog. Glenn Close was definitely up staged by a dog at her tribute during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF). I’m sure she didn’t mind since it was her own dog, Pip, who sneaked out of the green room and came prancing out on […]

Babysplitters offers a decidedly fresh take on the age-old struggle of couples coming into agreement about having children. The film, which had its world premiere earlier this month at SBIFF, dives headlong into unforeseen and decidedly risky territory as two couple who are close friends choose to have a single baby and split custody and […]

As the 34th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival kicked off across the road at the Arlington, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) hosted a “friend raiser” for 80 guests at Villa & Vine with a public service announcement Start a Conversation being shown before the main feature Diving Deep: The Life and Times of Mike deGruy […]

Last weekend, Santa Barbara marked the 50th anniversary of the famous oil spill that befouled local beaches and, through inspiring Earth Day and the creation the EPA, basically birthed the environmental movement. Earlier in the month, Montecito marked the one-year anniversary of the devastating debris flows that killed 23 people and caused millions in damages. […]

Last January, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival considered cancelling the city’s premiere cinematic event in the wake of the Thomas Fire and the devastating Montecito debris flows before ultimately deciding to go ahead, partly as a healing offering. This Wednesday, SBIFF 34 kicks off with a locally-produced opening night film catalyzed by another Montecito-related […]

The venerable 2,000-seat Arlington Theatre was chock a block when actress Renée Zellweger, who gave quite the performance as movie and music icon in the Judy Garland biopic Judy, sat down for an hour-long interview on stage, complete with film clips from her illustrious career, as part of the 35th Santa Barbara International Film Festival. […]

“They are excellent, they sing really well,” David Crosby tweeted last October, hours after seeing The Brother Brothers open for I’m With Her at the Lobero Theatre. The folk-rock icon surely wasn’t the only music lover who was pleasantly surprised, as the sustained applause and cheers proved that many were basically blown away by the […]

Noah benShea created Jacob the Baker, a simple but wise character whose plainspoken wisdom and common-sense approach to life are delivered as parables with both compassion and humor. Until recently, there were just three books in the series that have provided solace and support for millions of people (and been translated into 18 languages) dating […]

The calendar is crammed as the new arts season arrives in earnest, although the biggest place in the land is more of a warm-weather venue. That would be the Santa Barbara Bowl, where it’s actually, unironically, unlikely to rain when Alanis Morissette takes the stage on Friday, September 27, followed two days later by the […]

Chloe Howard didn’t consider her deformity to be a disability before a horrible incident of bullying in high school left her ashamed and suffering from PTSD. But just a year later, the Washington State native living in Los Gatos found a new source of inspiration in the person of U2 lead singer Bono, whom she […]

A decade ago, Montecito asset manager Frank McGinity produced a film on Riven Rock and one of its more famous residents, Stanley McCormick, who was confined to the area for 40 years, and was the subject, in 1929, of the largest custodial lawsuit in America. McCormick, the son of Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the mechanical […]

Get ready to sink into a lawn chair at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse Sunken Gardens – UCSB Arts & Lectures’s free Summer Film Series starts up again on Friday night, July 6. If you’ve been buoyed by Bond movies, stirred by silent film classics, or moved by dancing scenes in classic movie musicals in […]

Happy Traum is merely the opening act for the next Sings Like Hell show starring Jack Sh*t, the super group comprising sidemen for singer-songwriter legends making at least its third visit to the Lobero. But before guitarist Val McCallum (Jackson Browne), drummer Pete Thomas, and bassist Davey Faragher (both Elvis Costello) hit the stage with […]