SBIFF Field Recordings: Take One

Oscar- nominated directors take the stage; female filmmakers; free screenings ; and more

WORDS Ninette Paloma

Lights up on one of Santa Barbara's ​most beloved festivals, where the winter doldrums are swept away by the promise of international inspiration and a hands-on opportunity to dive into the method and process of filmmaking.

The festivities kicked off with the U.S. Premiere of Craig Roberts' The Phantom of the Open, a heartwarming comedy injected with the understated elegance of actor Mark Rylance as a man with more passion than talent who fumbles his way into the British Open.

Day two brought us the Director's Tribute Panel: a well-polished cast of Oscar nominees that included Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog), Steven Spielberg (West Side Story), Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car),  Kenneth Branagh (Belfast), and Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza) offering insight into their challenges and approaches from conception to their final takes. With dry wit and self-depracating humor Anderson stole the show, staying in Santa Barbara long enough to present a free screening of Licorice Pizza - one of ten such offerings at this year's festival- Friday afternoon to a packed audience at the Arlington Theatre.

At Casa de La Guerra, the Filmmakers Seminars were underway, with female fIlmmakers holding court among a fully engaged audience who listened intently as the panelists described the pitfalls and victories of being in the industry while also being female.

In between, the screenings were plentiful, with highlights that included a riveting performance by Sophie Breyer (Laetitia) in Christophe Hermans's The Hive (La Ruche) ; the understated beauty of Russell Brown's Loren and Rose  - which included a surpise and welcomed appearance by the film's stars Jacqueline Bisset and  Kelly Blatz; and a late-night premiere of Santa Barbara filmmaker Leslie Zemeckis's Grande Horizontales that focused an enlightening lens on history's most high-profile courtesans - preceded by Letters from a Traveler, a delicately moving short by local filmmaker Benjamin David Hoffman.