Beyond the Border at UCSB,

UCSB’s Carsey-Wolf Center kicks off its CWC Docs series on October 8 with Borderland | The Line Within, the uber-timely investigation of immigration that dives into the border-industrial complex – the way businesses profit through the undocumented workers and the attendant human cost. The film, which was produced over five years with the assistance of three “experimental digital humanists,” will be followed by a discussion with director Pamela Yates – who executive produced the Academy Award-winning Witness to War – and UCSB Chicano Studies prof Giovanni Batz. Visit www.carseywolf.ucsb.edu/pollock

The Wild Robot, the animated science fiction survival film based on the book series by Peter Brown and featuring the voices of Lupita Nyong’o, Catherine O’Hara, Stephanie Hsu, and Ving Rhames, opened last weekend to rave reviews from both critics and moviegoers, who made the movie tops at the box office. Saturday at 11 am, SBIFF screens the film for free, followed by a Q&A with writer and director Chris Sanders, who adapted Brown’s books about a robot shipwrecked on an uninhabited island who builds relationships with the local wildlife, including serving as the adoptive mother of an orphaned goose. 

There’s also a bit of (reverse) anthropomorphism at the Riviera later in the day with Better Man, a biopic about the British pop singer Robbie Williams, who also stars but is portrayed as a monkey using motion-capture technology. The movie, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival but isn’t slated to open until January, gets a Cinema Society preview at the Riviera at 5 pm, followed by a talk with writer-director Michael Gracey. Visit https://sbiffriviera.com