Tag archives: SBIFF
Music & Meditation Santa Barbara continues its second season at Weinman Hall at the Music Academy of the West on Friday afternoon October 23 with well-known locally-based clarinetist Nancy Mathison joining and pianist-artistic director Antonio Artese for an intimate one-hour program. After a guided meditation and period of intentional silence led by Jessica Kolbe, Mathison […]
Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Roger McGuinn is the folk-rock pioneer with the Byrds (and the lesser-known successor McGuinn, Clark & Hillman). McGuinn has enjoyed a lengthy solo career, and is the latest pop music legend to grace the downtown theater with a career-spanning retrospective that goes beyond the music. Just a couple of […]
It was a summer of truly spectacular performances across chamber concerts, recitals, orchestral evenings and more. That’s to be expected every summer at the Music Academy. There were also several special programs in the “American Mosaic” season, clearly meant to elevate our experiences of democracy and contemplation of the perhaps dwindling American Dream for many […]
France is still favored to win the World Cup – at least as of this writing – but the boys in blue are going to have to compete with output from their country even more artisanal than a sizzling Mbappé strike. Which is to say, the annual SBIFF French Wave Film Festival invades Santa Barbara […]
As often happens, select Oscar-winning movies head back to theaters in the wake of the awards, but now a number of them will be playing in SBIFF’s own McHurley Film Center downtown. Re-opening on the big screen on Friday, March 20, are One Battle After Another, whose five award-winners (six Oscars) were all part of […]
Westmont senior Ashley Clark, an English and theater arts double major from Henderson, Nevada, participated in the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s competitive five-month filmmaking program. During that time, she wrote a screenplay, Deus Ex Machina. The festival paired her with UC Santa Barbara international student Can Basoglu, who directed the short film that premiered […]
Hollywood has hoofed it back down to L.A. Independent filmmakers from across the globe have moved on to their next festival. Documentary directors are diving into new projects. Yes, SBIFF 41 is in the rearview mirror. But fret not, plenty of foreign films, mini-budget movies, daring documentaries, arthouse wonders, and retrospectives are still around, not […]
Last week, we said we weren’t going to tally up the total number of current Academy Award nominees coming to SBIFF this year. But I couldn’t resist reporting on the deluge of such Oscar-decorated actors and others who showed up on a single day last Sunday. We got to hear from the producers of all […]
Less than a week ago chain link fencing still surrounded the entrance to the former Fiesta 5 Theatre, and big dumpsters perched on either side of the entryway on State Street. Passerby at that time would have been well within their rights to doubt SBIFF’s McHurley Film Center – the lavishly remodeled new facility for […]
Ifn previous years, many of the films in SBIFF have only had something of a tangential connection to the Santa Barbara area, maybe a producer or an actor, or below-the-line production crew. But you can’t get more Santa Barbara, and even more specifically, Montecito, than Relatively Normal. This full-length feature is having its world premiere […]
The 41st Santa Barbara International Film Festival opens on February 4 with a single event at the Arlington Theatre, but the U.S. premiere of A Mosquito in the Ear is not an opening night to miss. The drama with dialogue in both English and Hindu focuses on the international adoption of a four-year-old girl in […]
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 […]
The big news since we last mentioned the upcoming 41st annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival (excluding the big January 14 announcement of the film screenings and such – frustratingly slated to drop well past our deadline, ahem) is the addition of a trio of true superstar actors collectively receiving the newly-named Hammond Cinema Vanguard […]
It’s one of the axioms of the arts that just as the year is winding down, the Oscars and other film award races are heating up. What also warms up as the weather cools in our community is anticipation of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, which presents its 41st annual event February 4-14. There’s […]
As Lucy Liu’s new film Rosemead comes to the Santa Barbara Cinema Society, the actress discusses where the film falls – and where she herself falls – on the American cultural landscape. Lucy Liu is speaking from NYC, though she won’t be there long. Award season has come in like a lion, and with it […]
Longtime Santa Barbara resident Andy Davis, director of such classic films as The Fugitive and Under Siege, will be on hand for a free screening of his well-received 2003 dramedy Holes (first feature film of mercurial actor Shia LaBeouf) on Sunday morning, September 28, at SBIFF’s Riviera Theatre. A conversation with Davis about the movie […]
Actress, singer, and producer Cynthia Erivo continues to defy gravity, as the multi-hyphenate has been announced as the recipient of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s 18th annual Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film, given in honor of the late screen legend who called Montecito home for decades. Erivo is more than three-quarters of […]
SBIFF’s Cinema Society dips back into streaming sensations at the Riviera Theatre with a power-packed pair of evenings devoted to popular AppleTV+ series that have very different ways of showing how folks cope with the loss of a spouse. First up: Severance, the eerie, imaginative and provocative science fiction psychological thriller that has captivated audiences […]
SBIFF’s annual French Wave Film Festival brings 11 new French films to the Riviera Theatre screening in repertory July 11-17, including multiple winners and nominees for César Awards (France’s Oscars) and movies that have screened at major film festivals in Cannes, Berlin, Toronto and Venice. Among the highlights: The President’s Wife: Bernadette, which stars Catherine […]
High above the sun-drenched vineyards of Paso Robles, DAOU Vineyards stands as a symbol of passion, craftsmanship, and the pursuit of excellence. Since its founding in 2007 by brothers Georges and Daniel Daou, this estate has become a cornerstone of California’s Central Coast wine country. Nestled in the renowned Adelaida District, DAOU has built a […]
