UCSB Arts & Lectures just released its impressive slate of events for the 2026-27 season. But before diving into everything the fall, winter and spring seasons gather under the A&L auspices, there is the 15th season of the free Summer Cinema series with which to happily reckon. These Friday night communal screenings at the Santa […]

Before 1992, fly fishing was merely a niche hobby, a specialized method of catching just a few species of fish – a practice requiring a specific type of rod and tackle, hand-tying the lightweight artificial “fly” on the hook, and often the donning of hip-high wading boots for standing almost motionless in a river for […]

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 […]

Student filmmakers from around the world are invited to submit their work for the 4th annual Montecito Student Film Festival, taking place Saturday, Nov. 14, at Westmont College in Montecito. The festival’s call for entries opened March 1, and submissions will be accepted through midnight on June 1. The festival aims to empower the next […]

Certain surprises in the film industry award season have shaken things up among the professional prognosticators known as Oscarologists. Leading up to this weekend’s Oscars, the long-predicted winners of a couple of the major categories seem less etched-in-stone than in previous Oscar bouts, such that a welcome air of unpredictability sweetens the weekend’s anticipation. You […]

At a moment when conversations around health are both deeply personal and publicly fraught, conditions that live quietly inside the body often remain the least understood. Medicine itself is built on privacy – doctor-patient confidentiality exists for good reason – and when pain carries even a hint of stigma or embarrassment, silence can become the […]

Artnet tempted me with a list of “The Best Art World Movies of 2025” and they were all so good I had to share. These films deal with prescient themes such as gender, art theft (both outright and AI generated), collaborative relationships in artists’ lives, and include documentaries on controversial art figures that we thought […]

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 […]