Whilst many of you were getting ready to cover the International Film Festival in Rotterdam or the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, I went to Santa Barbara to cover the 35th edition of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF). Attracting around 100,000 attendees across 11 days of films, SBIFF is one of the largest film festivals in California running just after the equally prestigious Palm Springs Film Festival. It’s also one of the closest to Los Angeles, a city which surprisingly doesn’t have a single big film festival in the way that San Francisco, New York, and many cities around the world do, despite being the home of Hollywood. (More on Los Angeles’ film festivals later this year). Because of its proximity to Hollywood, and the fact that it takes place a few weeks before the Academy Awards, it’s always a stop for many of the directors and actors campaigning for Oscar glory.
That being said, I wasn’t there to interview A-list celebs on the red carpet or catch re-runs of some of the Academy Award contender. I was at SBIFF to sample its lineup of films from 50 countries, in particular, the films screening for their International and Spain/Latin American competition.
So how was it? You’ve probably read some of the quick reviews we’ve been posting from the films we’ve seen on the SBIFF page, but what was SBIFF actually like?
The Audiences
One thing I noticed during my first day at SBIFF – a Saturday – was that I was the youngest person in the theater for every screening. By a long way. Most of the audience were 50+ with most of them being seniors. One lady that sat next to me for one screening even commented that it was nice seeing a young folk at the festival. I’m 28, so not being the oldest isn’t new to me, but I’ve never felt so young in a movie theater. They also mentioned that they didn’t see a person under 40 at the Palm Springs festival which they attended the week before. Maybe it’s a small city thing. Maybe it’s a U.S. thing as the audiences at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles weren’t young either.
However, this definitely isn’t a Film Festival thing as the BFI London Film Festival has a lot of young cinema goers. The BFI do a great job at getting students and people in their 20’s into their screenings. They offer cheap tickets to anyone 25 and under 30 minutes before the screenings start if there’s still space available (I’ve never been turned away as film guest seats are always freed up). As a result, most of their screenings are full or close to it. It would be great to see similar initiatives to boost younger audiences at SBIFF to ensure the loyal older audience is still there in 40 years’ time.
The City
Santa Barbara is a great small city. If you’re there for the week reviewing films, you have plenty of options for places to eat State Street. It’s also just nice wandering around the mission style buildings – the place is pretty. You can even walk to the southeastern end of State Street if you want to chill on the beach, which is a rarity at a major film festival. Plus, those of you in Rotterdam and Sundance would no doubt appreciate the warm sunny weather that’s almost guaranteed daily in Santa Barbara.
However, one of the main downsides to Santa Barbara is that it isn’t cheap. The food options were more expensive than many areas of Los Angeles as well as London and Berlin. For those on a budget, I’d recommend living off the Ralph’s deli at West Carrillo Street/Chapala Street and bringing your own water if you don’t want to spend $10+ per meal. Accommodation also was expensive for the MLK day weekend, so I was relived that one of my relatives was able to host me from just outside the city (thanks Javi).
The Experience
Just like all the other film festivals I’ve attended, the queuing situation at SBIFF was organized chaos. Before every block of screenings at the Metro 4 theater on State Street there were at least 5 lines full of people. The lines would spill onto the streets and completely block the sidewalk on that side of the road, so anyone not attending the festival has to cross the road to walk past it. However, I never saw or heard anyone complaining, apart from one guy cycling along the sidewalk blasting music that should have been on the road anyway. So even though it appeared chaotic, it did work. People queued up for the films they wanted to see and appeared to get to see them thanks to the many lines.
There were a lot of Q&A’s too, which is what helps a film festival to stand out. At SBIFF they had a lot of special stand-alone Q&A’s with Hollywood celebrities, but they also had roughly a 40% turn out for crew and/or cast member Q&A’s for all the international films which is a pretty good turnout for a small city like Santa Barbara. All of them were managed pretty well, even though, unfortunately, no film festival is immune from bad audience questions.
The volunteers were all great too, so it was a nice touch that SBIFF included a slide saying “Please give a round of applause for all the volunteers at SBIFF” before the start of every film.
The Films
Last, but not least, how were the movies at SBIFF?
Overall, I thought the selection of films could have been better. As soon as I saw the schedule, I was a disappointed in the lack of diversity in the films selected for the festival. There were over 70 World Premieres and films from 50 countries, but almost all of the international films were from Europe and the Americas. Most noticeably was a distinct lack of African films; I only noticed one feature film from North Africa (Papicha, the Academy Award submission from Algeria) meaning there were zero sub-Saharan African films. There was also a very slim selection of films from Asia, apart from the odd Turkish film and screenings of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite.
The International Competition
The lack of diversity was most obvious in the International Competition, in which 10 of the 12 films were European. The other two were Canadian, leaving 4 of the 6 movie producing continents left unrepresented.
Nevertheless, here’s my rankings of the 9 films I saw that competed in SBIFF’s International Competition:
The top three stood out, whilst the bottom 4 disappointed.
Spain/Latin American Competition
The Spain/Latin American competition made up for some of the diversity woes of the International competition with 11 films from 3 different continents (ironically one more than the international competition).
Of the 7 films I saw from the competition, there was a distinct split between Art-house festival fare and cheesy heartwarming films. The bottom two fell into the latter whilst the top 4 fell into the former. The top 4 were 4 of my favorite films I saw at the festival, showing that the Spain/Latin American competition didn’t just trump the International competition on diversity but quality as well.
Best of the Rest
The International and Spain/Latin American competitions weren’t the only films I managed to see thanks to some screeners sent out early by the filmmakers. The two best screeners I received were for Out Deh, a documentary about three inspiring young men from Jamaica and Song Sparrow, a short film depicting refugees being trafficked in the back of a refrigerated truck. The other short films I saw were all interesting too even if they weren’t perfectly executed.
Whilst it didn’t go as far as Palm Springs, which screened every single Academy Award submission for Best International Feature Film, SBIFF also screened a few submissions that haven’t received U.S. distribution yet.
Conclusion
Overall, SBIFF is a festival worth attending. Whilst you may not find a program that’s as diverse or weird as some of the other film festivals in California, you will at least get to be in a beautiful small city by the beach.
If you’re based near Santa Barbara, make sure you leave time to attend in 2021. Or, if you’re based in Los Angeles or further afield, it’s definitely worth making a long weekend trip and mix International films with mountain hikes and strolls along the sea.
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