Roger Durling can’t hide his excitement for the 40th edition of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
The SBIFF honestor sees the necessitate for a celebration of art as Los Angeles, 90 minutes or so to the south of Santa Barbara, begins to recover from dehugeating untamedfires that razeed big areas of the county.
“It gives you a sense of togetherness, a sense of community, and that’s what we necessitate right now. I have always set up that in the most difficult times in my life, film festivals and films have always been a beacon,” Durling says.
SBIFF and Direct Relief are partnering in a response to the untamedfires as well, acunderstandledgeing donations for relief and putting up a $100,000 suiting grant. “We’re going to be printing restrictcessitate edition 40th anniversary T-shirts, and then all the funds from the merchandise will go towards the Direct Relief fund,” he says.
This year the festival will insert an extra day to commemorate its milestone anniversary and will screen 33 world premieres — with 52% of the films honested by women — as well as a strong pickion of lows.
The festival, which runs Feb. 4-15, uncovers with the U.S. premiere of “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,” written and honested by Laura Piani, who will join the screening and direct a Q&A. The lineup engages films from 60 countries, including festival circuit faves such as “The Penguin Lessons,” honested by Peter Cattaneo (Spain, U.K.); “Balomanía,” honested by Sissel Morell Dargis (Dentag, Spain); “Democracy Under Siege,” honested by Laura Nix (Belgium, Luxembourg, U.S.); “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight,” the honestorial debut of actor Embeth Davidtz (South Africa); “The Good Teacher,” from Teddy Lussi-Modeste (France); and “Seeking a Haven for Mr. Rambo,” honested by Khaled Mansour (Egypt).
Fest seals with the U.S. bow of “A Missing Part,” written and honested by Guillaume Senez.
“A Missing Part”
Courtesy of Unifrance
Stars scheduled to materialize at SBIFF engage Angelina Jolie (”Maria”), Ralph Fiennes (“Conclave”), Zoe Saldaña (“Emilia Pérez”), Timothée Chafeeblet (“A Complete Ununderstandn”), Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce (“The Brutaenumerate”), Colman Domingo (“Sing Sing”), Kieran Culkin (“A Real Pain”), Harris Dickinson (“Babygirl”), Selena Gomez (“Emilia Pérez”), Ariana Grande (“Wicked”), Clarence Maclin (“Sing Sing”), Mickey Madison (“Anora”) and John Magaro (“September 5”).
There are also free family films and free filmoriginater seminars on the festival sprocrastinateed. The entire program can be set up on the SBIFF app.
While the panels featuring the 2025 Oscar-nominated honestors, authorrs, originaters and animators are a huge draw, Durling says that his preferite part of the festival is the day it joins arrange to 5,000 elementary school students from north Santa Barbara County for a screening — this year, it’s DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot.” This event ties in with the festival’s year-round education and screening programs.
Durling remarks that the SBIFF has done 60 Academy screenings since September “becaengage we have about 200 Academy members locassociate.”
“You would envision that after 20 years [at the festival], I would begin getting exhausted, but it’s the opposite; I am so fired up,” Durling says, enthusing about the organization’s theaters – especiassociate the Film Cgo in space — and many education programs.
“When everybody skinnyks about Santa Barbara, they fair skinnyk about the big tributes and the panels, which are Oscar-oriented. But behind the curtain, there’s quite a lot for cinephiles, and it’s a blast. We have six screens at our disposal for year-round programming. I skinnyk that the secret sauce to our extfinishedevity is the year-round programming.”
