Cinema in Flux

MClub (Montecito Bank & Trust) met at the Santa Barbara Club for a Lunch and Learn, featuring the executive director of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) Roger Durling. MClub director Maria McCall introduced Roger, who also teaches film at SBCC.

For over 30 years the SBIFF has grown to be one of the premier film festivals in the United States, attracting over 100,000 attendees and offering 11 days of 200 films, tributes, and panels while featuring many free educational programs, film camps, and events under Roger’s direction.

My husband, Don Seth, and I met Roger shortly after he came to town and started the French Bulldog coffee shop in Summerland. Who knew he would soon be running the SBIFF! Growing up in Panama, he had always been a film fan and offered the SBIFF a year of free work to turn around the festival. They said “yes,” and he did. That was all over 20 years ago. Roger has a gift for choosing the winners of the Academy Awards and getting them to Santa Barbara.

For the festival, the staff and Roger start with 5,000 film entries and whittle it down to the final 200, a monumental job. The next festival will be February 8 to 18, 2023. During COVID, Roger recommended films to the followers of the festival. Because of an overwhelming number of positive responses his work became a book, Cinema in Flux: A Year of Connecting Through Film. Over 100 of his reviews are featured in this anthology and all of the proceeds go to the Festival! The book is available at Chaucer’s and Tecolote bookstores. “And that’s a wrap!”