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The clear hallmark of this year’s SBIFF is with attending actors having scored 8 out of a possible 20 Oscar nominations across the four acting categories, and 7 of 8 are first-time nominees.
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he “Outstanding Performer of the Year Award” will be presented to normally funny Steve Carell, playing against type as reclusive millionaire Jon du Pont in Foxcatcher, the true story of Olympic gold-winning wrestling brothers ensnared within the moneyed, insulated world and estate of du Pont. Carell is a Best Actor nominee. Michael Keaton’s long, celebrated career will get a proper evening of its own when the Best Actor nominee receives the “Modern Master Award” for a career-turning, some say career-defining, role in filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu’s existential mind trip Birdman. And the festival’s “Virtuosos Award” is historically an evening honoring multiple guests and often newer talent, this year including Best Actor nominee J.K. Simmons for his firebrand music conservatory instructor in Best Picture nominee Whiplash, and Rosamund Pike for her exacting ice queen recognized with a Best Actress nod for Gone Girl. Also scheduled to be honored: Chadwick Boseman for Get on Up, Ellar Coltrane for Boyhood, Logan Lerman for Fury, David Oyelowo for Selma, and Jenny Slate for Obvious Child. Any way you slice it, some of the best artists in the world of cinema will be in Santa Barbara, up on screen, walking our red carpets, queried on stage, and shuffling on our concrete. The town breathesin and reverberates a caffeinated pulse for almost a fortnight’s time.
50 | FEBRUARY 2015
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Ask any local why we love Santa Barbara and nearly without fail you’ll hear about the moderate climate and the activities promised each day by both mountainous and oceanic playgrounds. It’s the call of seafood and a clear day’s harbor view at Brophy Bros. It’s families strolling the Art Walk on Cabrillo every Sunday. It’s day-drinking in the Funk Zone, nighttime revelry downtown, 1st Thursday events, running with the Nite Moves gang, wine tasting, or old black and white movie projections in the Sunken Gardens. Can’t beat that stuff. It can also be our shorts and flip-flops sensibility, locals point out. It’s low crime, stunning sunsets, good schools, proximity to both SF and LA, and the eschewing of many major business chains in the city proper. It’s the American Riviera! I get all that, love all that. But there’s something pretty special about these eleven days per year too, when our sleepy little beach town gets to dress up like our Hollywood alter-ego to the near south. For reasons both creative and experiential, long live the Santa Barbara International Film Festival! *