Santa Barbara International Film Festival

[caption id="attachment_2937" align="alignnone" width="550"]Jennifer Lawrence stars in new film Silver Linings Playbook[/caption]

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival will honor Academy Award® nominated actress Jennifer Lawrence, director, producer and actor Ben Affleck, and actor Robert DeNiro at the 28th edition of the Fest, which runs January 24 -February 3, 2013.

Lawrence will be presented with the Outstanding Performer of the Year Award celebrating her performances in The Hunger Games and Silver Linings Playbook. Starring alongside Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook, directed by David O. Russell, Lawrence plays the vulnerable and complex Tiffany, the mysterious and disturbed neighbor to Pat Solantano (Cooper).

Affleck will be presented with the Modern Master Award, the highest honor presented by SBIFF.  Affleck will be honored for his work this year as the director, star and producer of the critically acclaimed film Argo.

Director, producer and Academy Award-winning actor ROBERT DE NIRO has been chosen to receive The Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s seventh annual KIRK DOUGLAS AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN FILM.  Mr. De Niro will accept this honor from Mr. Douglas in recognition of his exceptional career spanning over four and a half decades, leading up to this year’s Silver Linings Playbook.

Read more

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival has set Thursday, January 24 through Sunday, February 3, 2013 as the dates for the 28th edition of the festival, it was announced today by SBIFF Executive Director, Roger Durling.

Comments SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling, “The 27th edition was an exciting one for us – full of changes and growth with our first ever acquisitions program. Now in the midst of preparations for the 28th edition – we guarantee you that the best is yet to come.”

Read more

[caption id="attachment_2422" align="alignnone"]UP THERE, directed by Zam Salim[/caption]

The 27th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival announced the winners of the 2012 festival competition and awarded UP THERE, directed by Zam Salim won the Panavision Spirit Award for Independent Cinema.

The winning films are as follows:

The Panavision Spirit Award for Independent Cinema, given to a unique independent feature that has been made outside mainstream Hollywood, went to UP THERE, directed by Zam Salim, about Martin, whois stuck in a dead-end job, welcoming the newly departed into the afterlife. All he dreams of is going “up there,” and he attempts to cope with his death by keeping his nose clean and minding his own business. But all this is thrown into disarray when, in order to track down an errant lost soul. Winner received a Panavision camera package worth $60,000.

A special Jury Prize for Artistic Distinction was awarded to BARRYMORE, directed by Erik Canuel and starring Christopher Plummer, to acknowledge Mr. Plummer’s superb performance, Mr. Luce’s remarkable play and Mr. Canuel’s adaptation and uncanny ability to capture the play (originally directed by Gene Saks) in a completely original piece of cinematic art.

The Best International Film Award went to FREE MEN, directed by Ismael Ferroukhi about an Algerian Muslim immigrant who joins the French Resistance to save Algerian Jews.

The Nueva Vision Award for the best Spanish/Latin American film was awarded to FOUND MEMORIES, directed by Julia Murat. A young photographer finds a forgotten ghost town where only a handful of old people live, and changes their lives forever.

The jury awarded an Honorable Mention to THE RUMBLE OF THE STONES (El Rumor de las Piedras), directed by Alejandro Bellame Palacios. Venezuela’s official submission for the Academy Awards, Rumble of the Stones is a heartfelt and compelling portrait of the enduring power of a mother’s love against the backdrop of the social problems of modern-day Venezuela

Best Documentary Film Awardwent to PRETTY OLD, directed by Walter Matteson. Pretty Old follows four diverse women, ages 67 to 94, competing in the 30th year Anniversary of the Ms. Senior Sweetheart Beauty Pageant in Fall River, Massachusetts, exploring what it truly means to “age beautifully.”

The Cinema Nouveau Award went to HEAT WAVE (Apres Le Sud),directed by Jean- Jacques Jauffret. Based on a true story, HEAT WAVE offers up a story from intersecting points of view where different destinies cross paths and are reunited by a tragic event.

Bruce Corwin Award for Best Live Action Short Film Under 30 Minutes went toL TRAIN, directed by Anna Musso. Executive produced by Alexander Payne, L TRAIN is the story of Sunny, a teenaged African American girl commuting through an inner city winter – an existence that injects a negativity into her long days.

Bruce Corwin Award for Best Animation Short Film went to THE MISSING KEY, directed by Jonathan Nix. In a richly re-imagined Venice of the early 1920s, young composer Hero Wasabi must compete against the unscrupulous Count Telefino in the prestigious Abacus Scroll musical competition.

The Fund for Santa Barbara Social Justice Award Sponsored by The Fund for Santa Barbara for a documentary film that addresses social justice issues also went to DIRTY ENERGY, directed by Bryan Hopkins, which tells the personal story of those directly affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill and who are now struggling to rebuild their lives amidst the economic devastation and long-term health risks. Winner receives $2500.

The Audience Choice Award, sponsored by the SB Independent, went to STARBUCK, directed by Ken Scott, about a former sperm donor who discovers he’s the father of 533 children, 142 of whom have filed a class action lawsuit to determine the identity of their biological father, known only by the pseudonym Starbuck.

Read more

[caption id="attachment_2266" align="alignnone"]THE SAMARITAN, starring Academy Award® nominated Samuel L. Jackson[/caption]

The 27th Santa Barbara International Film Festival which takes place January 26 through February 5, announced the addition of the World Premiere of THE SAMARITAN, starring Academy Award® nominated Samuel L. Jackson, to the program as a Gala Presentation. The red carpet Gala event will take place on Sunday, January 29, at 7pm at the Lobero Theatre.

Produced by Andras Hamori and directed by David Weaver from a screenplay by Weaver and Elan Mastai, The Samaritan also stars Luke Kirby (Take This Waltz), Ruth Negga (Love/Hate) and Oscar nominated Tom Wilkinson (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol). After twenty-five years in prison, Foley (Jackson) is finished with the grifter’s life. When he meets an elusive young woman named Iris (Negga), the possibility of a new start looks real. But his past is proving to be a stubborn companion: Ethan (Kirby), the son of his former partner, has an ingenious plan and he wants Foley in. The harder Foley tries to escape his past, the tighter he is ensnared in Ethan’s web of secrets, until it becomes all too clear to Foley that some wrongs can never be made right.

THE SAMARITAN was produced with the participation of Telefim Canada, Ontario Media Development Corporation and The Harold Greenberg Fund. Producers are Hamori and Weaver with Suzanne Cheriton and Tony Wosk, Executive producers are Mark Musselman with Lacia Kornylo, Mark Horowitz, Jackson, Eli Selden, Geoffrey Brant, James Atherton, and Jan Pace.

IFC Films recently acquired the U.S. distribution rights from H2O Motion Pictures and Traction Media. H2O and Quckfire Films is selling international rights for The Samaritan.

SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling says “THE SAMARITAN is an electrifying neo-noir thriller with amazing twists and turns. Samuel L. Jackson’s performance is fantastic.”

Read more

[caption id="attachment_2264" align="alignnone"]Where Do We Go Now? directed by Nadine Labaki[/caption]

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) announced its line-up for 2012. The Festival begins Thursday, January 26 and continues through Sunday, February 5, 2012.

“Our program this year reflects invigorating change,” remarks SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling. “When I joined SBIFF ten years ago, I set out to bring the festival’s program and its sidebars to reflect the city of Santa Barbara as a city, and its community. This year we’ve taken that concept even further. We have a fantastic, quirky, all encompassing program.”

OPENING & CLOSING NIGHT GALAS

SBIFF 2012 will kick off at the historic Arlington Theatre with the World Premiere of the Sony Pictures Classics film Darling Companion. The Opening Night film will be preceded by the new Pixar animated short film, La Luna, written and directed by Enrico Casarosa. La Luna is a fable of a young boy who heads to sea for a most unusual rite of passage. Following the Opening Night screening, the festivities will continue with a party at Paseo Nuevo in downtown Santa Barbara. Opening Night Film and Gala is sponsored by Studio 7 and The Hollywood Reporter.

On Closing Night, SBIFF proudly presents the West Coast Premiere of Where Do We Go Now? directed by Nadine Labaki. Winner of the People’s Choice Award at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and Broadcast Film Critics Association nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this anti-war comedy offers a wildly creative take on the intractable religious conflict in a remote village. Fed up with mourning their husbands and sons, the women of the village, where Christians and Muslims live side by side, concoct inventive schemes to prevent sectarian violence from further corrupting their loved ones. To quash interreligious conflicts, the women are not above sabotaging the village’s sole television, colluding with the priest and imam, nor enlisting a busload of sexy Ukrainian strippers to distract their men. Through Labaki’s wonderfully insightful comic eye, Where Do We Go Now? confronts the hard truths of a fractured society, offering an alternate vision of transcendence and unity. The Closing Night film is sponsored by The Santa Barbara Independent.

CENTERPIECE GALA

The Centerpiece Gala will feature the U.S. Premiere of Samsara, directed by Ron Fricke. Prepare yourself for an unparalleled sensory experience! Samsara reunites Fricke and producer Mark Magidson, whose previous films Baraka and Chronos were acclaimed for combining visual and musical artistry. Samsara expands on their effort to portray the connections between humanity and nature in a bold way. Filmed for over four years and in more than twenty countries, the film transports us through multiple cultures to sacred grounds, disaster sites, industrialized zones and natural wonders. By dispensing with dialogue and descriptive text, the filmmakers subvert our expectations of a documentary. Instead, they encourage our own interpretations inspired by images and musical compositions that infuse the ancient with the modern. Samsara is a Tibetan word that means “the ever turning wheel of life,” and Fricke describes the film as a “guided meditation on the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.”

 

Click here for the full film lineup

Read more

[caption id="attachment_2262" align="alignnone"]Demián Bichir in A Better Life[/caption]

Santa Barbara International Film Festival continues its tradition of honoring the year’s standout performers with The 2012 Virtuosos Award. The actors who were selected to be recognized for their exceptional performances are: Demián Bichir for his earnest portrayal as Carlos, a virtuous father struggling to provide for his son in A Better Life; Rooney Mara for her dark and provocative performance as Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; Melissa McCarthy for her role as the hilariously outspoken Megan in Bridesmaids; Patton Oswalt for masterfully navigating between the realms of comedy and drama as Matt Freehauf in Young Adult; Andy Serkis for stepping into the mind and body of an ape through his master of performance-capture technology in his role as Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes; and Shailene Woodley for bringing an emotional complexity to a character rarely seen at her age as Alexandra in The Descendants.

Comments Durling, “I’m ecstatic about this strong line-up of Virtuosos. They all gave us indelible performances.”

The Virtuosos Award was created to recognize a select group of actors who have distinguished themselves through performances in film this past year. Last year’s recipients for this award were Lesley Manville, John Hawkes, Jacki Weaver and Hailee Steinfeld.

The Award presentation, moderated by Entertainment Weekly’s Dave Karger, is sponsored by Stella Artois and will now take place at the Arlington Theatre on Friday, February 3, 2012.

Read more

The World Premiere of the Sony Classics Pictures film Darling Companion, directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starring Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline, Dianne Wiest, Richard Jenkins, Sam Shepard, Mark Duplass, Elisabeth Moss, and Ayelet Zurer will open the 27th Santa Barbara International Film Festival (January 26-February 5, 2012).

“We are incredibly privileged to have the world premiere of a Lawrence Kasdan film. The highly anticipated Darling Companion is a fantastic film to kick off the festival,” remarked SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling.

In DARLING COMPANION, Beth (Diane Keaton) saves a bedraggled lost dog from the side of the freeway on a wintry day in Denver. Struggling with her distracted, self-involved husband Joseph (Kevin Kline) and an empty nest at home, Beth forms a special bond with the rescued animal. When Joseph loses the dog after a wedding at their vacation home in the Rockies, the distraught Beth enlists the help of the few remaining guests and a mysterious young woman (Ayelet Zurer) in a frantic search. Each member of the search party is affected by the adventure, which takes them in unexpected directions – comic, harrowing, and sometimes deeply emotional.

In addition to Darling Companion, SBIFF will also feature a Lawrence Kasdan Retrospective in its 2012 program. Body Heat (1981), The Big Chill (1983), and Grand Canyon (1991) will be featured, as well as a Q&A with the filmmaker himself.

 

Read more

Academy Award® nominee Christopher Plummer will receive the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s highest honor, the Modern Master Award.

The Modern Master Award is the highest honor presented by SBIFF. Established in 1995, it was created to honor an individual who has enriched our culture through his/her multi-faceted accomplishments in the motion picture industry. Past recipients include Michael Douglas, Jodie Foster, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Diane Keaton, Sean Penn, Jeff Bridges, Peter Jackson, George Clooney, Will Smith, Cate Blanchett, Clint Eastwood, James Cameron, and Christopher Nolan.

Read more

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival will honor Academy Award®-winning director, screenwriter, producer and film historian Martin Scorsese with the American Riviera Award, marking the first time the award has been bestowed on a director. Scorsese, whose latest films, Hugo and the HBO documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World were released to critical acclaim this fall, will be honored on Monday, January 30 at the Arlington Theatre for the Fest’s 27th edition, which runs January 26- February 5, 2012.

“Honoring Scorsese has been a dream of SBIFF’s for many years,” commented Fest Executive Director Roger Durling, “We’re thrilled that it’s happening during a year when this contemporary master of cinema is breaking new ground with Hugo.”

Read more

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival, will honor Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo with the Cinema Vanguard Award for their performances in the silent film The Artist at the 27th edition of the Festival which runs January 26 – February 5, 2012.

The Cinema Vanguard Award was created in recognition of an actor who has forged his/her own path – taking artistic risks and making a significant and unique contribution to film. The award has previously been presented to Nicole Kidman, Christoph Waltz, Vera Farmiga, Stanley Tucci, Peter Sarsgaard, Kristin Scott Thomas and Ryan Gosling.

Dujardin and Bejo are currently receiving wide praise for their lead performances in The Artist, directed by Michel Hazanavicius. In late 1920’s Hollywood, many actors witnessed the decline of their careers with the rise of the talking picture. This is just the case for silent film superstar George Valentin (Dujardin), who crosses paths with rising starlet Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo). Resistant to the conversion, Valentin is faced with the demise of his career while Miller embraces it and emerges a star. Through his performance, Dujardin offers a striking portrayal of the silent era male superstar, packed with the conviction and suave on par with the likes of Rudolph Valentino. No sooner does Peppy Miller enchant fictional audiences, than does Bejo with the real, through her pure charm and genuine charisma. Together Dujardin and Bejo’s masterful talent, make for one of the most compelling stories in film.

Born in Rueil-Malmaison, France, Jean Dujardin got his break on the talent show Graines de Star in 1996 as part of the comedy group Nous C Nous. Following he went on to star as Jean ‘Loulou’ in the comedy television series Un Gars, Une Fille from 1999 to 2003. Continuing in the realm of comedy, Dujardin broke onto the big screen as aspiring surfer Brice Agostini in The Brice Man (2005). 2006 marked Dujardin’s first collaboration with Bejo through his role as Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath in the espionage film OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies. Dujardin reprised the role in 2009 for OSS 117: Lost in Rio.

Bérénice Bejo was born in Buenos Aires and moved to France at the age of 3. Bejo got her start working in an assortment of French television shows. She landed her first recurring role as Sophie on the comedy series Un Et Un Font Six (1997-1999). American audiences were introduced to her when she appeared in 2001’s A Knight Tale as Christina. Bejo returned to French films acting in a number of films including her role as Larmina in OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006) alongside Jean Dujardin.

{youtube}O8K9AZcSQJE{/youtube}

Read more

[caption id="attachment_1898" align="alignnone" width="550"]Viola Davis in The Help[/caption]

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival has announced that it will present award-winning actress, Viola Davis with the Outstanding Performer of the Year Award for her ‘compelling’ performance in Tate Taylor’s The Help at the 27th edition of the Festival which runs January 26 – February 5, 2012.

Davis captivated audiences and critics alike last summer with her portrayal of African American housemaid “Aibileen Clark.” Set in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1960s, “The Help” chronicles the relationship between three different and extraordinary women who build an unlikely friendship around a secret writing project that breaks societal rules and puts them all at risk. Deeply moving, filled with humor, hope and heart, “The Help” is a timeless and universal story about the ability to create change.

Davis will join previous Outstanding Performer Award recipients, including: James Franco (2011), Colin Firth (2010), Penelope Cruz (2009), Angelina Jolie (2008), Helen Mirren (2007), Heath Ledger (2006), Kate Winslet (2005) and Charlize Theron (2004).

Read more

The 26th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival announced the winners of the 2011 festival competition.  Commented SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling, “This year in particular, I have been incredibly impressed by our film lineup. Each of the films possessed their own unique quality, creating one of the most diverse and interesting programs yet.”

Read more