Mahil Senathirajah
By Mahil Senathirajah
The spotlights illuminated the sky, once again, in front of the Arlington as the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) kicked off its 37th edition last night —- in person!!
The Film Festival has been lauded for its sense of timing, placing itself just before the Oscars and, thereby, tapping into awards season publicity. But, timing itself just after the cresting and crashing of the Omicron wave is undoubtedly its greatest clairvoyance yet. In fact, I think it’s the first festival of its size to be wholly in person (for films) since the pandemic began; although Cannes was in person, but that was before Delta and Omicron.
The program started with the introduction of Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse, the audience response to whom might have been a little vocally equivocal, but he was gracious and concise in his welcome and genuinely wanted the city to have a good time after the last two years.
SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling then took the stage, bedecked in a poppin’ white suit, and provided his welcome which recognized the war in Ukraine, SBIFF’s wholehearted support for the Ukrainian people and guidance on how to donate through SBIFF’s collaboration with Direct Relief International (www.sbiff.org/ukraine). The was a small demonstration outside as well.
A tradition of the Festival has been Durling asking people in the audience to talk to a stranger next to them for a minute to help build a community of filmgoers at its start. In a charming touch, given concerns that people might have breathed on strangers, as an alternative, he taught the audience how to say “hello” and “I love you” in American Sign Language (a shout out to the SAG award-winning film CODA).
The film festival’s trailer this year is effectively Hank Pitcher’s artist statement, the first line of which is “Standing on a beach, looking out to sea, or sitting in a theater looking at the screen, we project our hopes and dreams out onto those vast surfaces”.
Pitcher picked up the mantle of the poster design this year. Barbara Boros, a remarkable artist and lovely spirit, unfortunately, passed away last year after having designed the poster from 2004 to 2021. As a testament, SBIFF has made available her impressive body of work at the bottom of its banner page, www.sbiff.org. It will bring back memories for long-time festival-goers.
The film was Phantom of the Open, based on the true story of Maurice Flitcroft, an essential working-class hero who, improbably, picked up the game of golf and immediately crashed the British Open in 1976. The film, a “follow-your-dreams” crowd-pleasing fable in the vein of Billy Elliott and the Full Monty, has a stellar cast in Sally Hawkins, Rhys Ifans, and Mark Rylance (who perhaps channeled his portrayal of an Elon Musk-type character in Don’t Look Up).
How was it? It was cute. And, cute is a much-needed therapeutic for pandemic malaise and stress in the zeitgeist.
By the way, SBIFF is committed to COVID safety. Its policy is that attendees must be vaxxed (boosting recommended) and wear masks during films (KN 95s or N95s recommended); Covid Safety | SBIFF. From what I could see, the vast majority of the audience was masked with only a handful of bald-faced recalcitrants.
It will be a different festival this year. No one knows quite what to expect given we are just emerging into large social gatherings. Who and how many will show up? Am I safe? And what will the traditions of the festival now look like? The parties are dialed back. There’s also a new programming team at the helm.
But, go see something. See what happens. See how you feel. Make something happen. The festival may be more like community-wide improv this year and that could be a lot of fun.
Visit sbiff.org for information on events and to buy tickets.
