Film Fest Fervor Mounting

The Banshees of Inisherin stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson– who reteamed for Martin McDonagh’s award-season darling dark comedy after having first appeared together in the director’s brilliant 2008 film In Bruges – have been tapped to together receive SBIFF’s Cinema Vanguard Award on February 16. The announcement rounds out this year’s acting awards at the 38th annual Santa Barbara Film Festival, which launches on February 8, four weeks after this issue comes off the printing press…

Iris Yamashita, whose Clint Eastwood-commissioned version of the Japanese side of the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima earned her an Academy Award screenwriting nomination for Letters from Iwo Jima, has published her debut novel. City Under One Roof, which finds a stranded detective trying to solve a murder in a tiny Alaskan town where everyone lives in a single high-rise building, has been called “a distinctively original perspective [that] heralds the arrival of a major new talent” by Publishers Weekly. Yamashita will talk about the writing and its roots in a virtual conversation for Chaucer’s Books on Monday, January 16.