Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Inheriting the job from founding artistic director Phyllis De Picciotto, Santa Barbara resident and film producer Renee Missel (Nell, Guy) expanded the 13th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival into an 11-day showcase of over 80 features and documentaries from around the world, with 13 films being world premieres. Keeping an eye to future and the past, the festival also celebrated American filmmaking during the 1970s.

Taking advantage of the festival’s inaugural theme, "The Magnificent Seventies," Missel reserved no less than three evenings for individual salutes: director John Schlesinger (with a screening of Midnight Cowboy); Oscar-nominated Julie Christie (with a screening of McCabe and Mrs. Miller); and writer/director Robert Towne (who was honored both with a screening of Chinatown and a world premiere of his latest film, the Steve Prefontaine bio-pic Without Limits.

Missel’s vision for the festival proved to be an unqualified success for attracting audiences, with attendance up by 4,000 people to total over 30,000. Opening with Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Big Lebowski, the festival unspooled global fare including Character, Mike Van Diem’s 1998 Oscar-winner for Best Foreign Film; Luis Galvao Teles’ Elles; Ricardo Franco’s La Buena Estrella, and Iranian gems like Abba Kiarostami’s Palme d’Or-winning Taste of Cherry and Majid Majidi’s The Children of Heaven.

American Independents were well-represented with screenings of John Sayles’ Men with Guns, Tommy O’Haver’s Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss, a last-minute addition of Bill Condon’s Gods and Monsters, Stuart Gordon’s The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, and With Friends Like These, Philip F. Messina’s comedy about desperate character actors in Los Angeles, which won the "Best of the Fest" audience award.

Kirsten Clarkson, director and writer of horsey, a gritty, low-budget Canadian film about heroin addicts and artists, had only praise for Missel and the way the festival was run. "She totally championed us," Clarkson said. "And the people who went to the Festival were really interested in helping out young filmmakers and young actors."

This year Missel programmed a hearty number of documentaries about films and filmmakers, including Full Tilt Boogie, Sarah Kelly’s behind-the-scenes look at the making of From Dusk ‘til Dawn; Derrick Santini’s In Ismail’s Custody, a 48-minute portrait of producer Ismail Merchant; Independent’s Day, Marina Zenovich’s snapshot of the state of independent film today; and the Turner-produced The Race to Save 100 Years, depicting film preservation techniques currently used to rescue America’s film heritage.

Complementing the Festival’s films were eight seminars on all aspects of filmmaking, including financing, directing, editing, and marketing. Indeed, some of the most heated discussions and helpful advice came from events like "Distribution Strategies," at which Sundance Festival Director Geoff Gilmore, using the 1998 Sundance winner Pi as an example, illuminated the perennial independent film dilemma of finding an audience: "I defy anyone here to describe this film so anybody would want to see it," he sighed. Producer and former Universal marketing executive Thom Mount analyzed the advantages of making a low-budget film in a small town: aside from potential perks like no-cost extras or discounts from nearby stores, the filmmakers can work with local reporters to create early word-of-mouth for their films – always crucial for winning that distribution deal. "How [your film] is perceived is your priority," he stressed. "Written publicity in non-mainstream sources, in the beginning, is more important to the studios and distributors than [being in] Premiere magazine."

During the lively screenwriters’ pow wow "It Starts with the Script," Neil LaBute wryly commented on the seating arrangements at the stage’s long table, which placed the imposing (in both presence and stature) Robert Towne right in the middle. "This has a Last Supper-y feel," LaBute remarked to great laughter. "I feel like one of the disciples here, although I sold out for a lot less." Among those seated was the Oscar-nominated Atom Egoyan, who modestly detailed the relationship he had with the cast members of his last film. "At a certain point, the actors do know more [about their characters], especially in The Sweet Hereafter. They had embodied these people, and my job then became to protect their performances."

At "The Cutting Edge," the festival’s seminar on film editing, the topic remained focused on the profound effect of non-linear, digital editing machines like the Avid. "At the end of the day, I’m not as tired as I used to be, physically," said president of the Editor’s Guild Don Cameron, whose career stretches back to Easy Rider and who reminisced about the exhaustion of working with heavy rolls of 35mm film every day. Added Neil Travis (Dances with Wolves), who, until the Avid, had once seriously considered changing his vocation because of the physical stress: "I’m a lot nicer guy as an editor – I used to get pissy with directors [when they asked for changes]." But Richard Chew (That Thing You Do!) voiced a common complaint about digital editing, which is that nowadays the post-production process, though less fatiguing, has unfortunately shrunk from six to two months. "The creation gestation period requires time," he reminded the audience.

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Santa Barbara International Film Festival by Stephen Garrett