In its fortieth year, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) showed over two hundred films, bringing together filmmakers and cinephiles from all over the world to downtown Santa Barbara.
This year, the festival expanded to last 12 days this year and awarded individual artists in addition to celebrating their films.
Honorees at the Writers Panel and Variety Artisans Award on Feb. 8 shared about the creative process—idea through execution—of their 2024 films.
2024 saw landmark experimentation in film as an art form, including the cinematography design of “Nickel Boys.”
“Nickel Boys”—a Best Picture nominee—follows two African American boys at an abusive reform school in Florida during the Jim Crow era. While there is no on-screen graphic violence, the subject matter is intense, and the filmmakers devised a way to pull audiences closer to the characters.
“We really had to figure out a different way to figure out cause and effect and to deal with the twist of the film…we [decided] on a sentient camera,” said writer Joslyn Barnes.
This “sentient camera” physically alternates the point of view between characters throughout the film.
“I think that it creates an intimacy,” “Nickel Boys” cinematographer Jomo Fray told The Fourth Estate. “Traditionally, in cinema, you’re in the experience of watching something happen to someone else. I think because of the perspective, ideally, it has a moment where because you’re not seeing it happen to someone else, you ask yourself the question, ‘Well, what would I feel if this happened to me?’”
The 2025 Best Picture nominees also emphasized music more than in other years. The 10 nominees include two movie musicals—“Emilia Pérez” and “Wicked”—and the Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown.”
The creative team behind “A Complete Unknown” strove to honor Dylan’s music, and one way of doing that was by having the actors sing the songs live throughout the film.
“I think this movie would be an entirely different movie if it would have gone to lip-syncing. You would never have had that feeling of being alive inside of it,” said “A Complete Unknown” sound engineer Tod Maitland.
Actor Timothée Chalamet received the first-ever Arlington Artist of the Year Award on Feb. 11 for his portrayal of Dylan.
“The respect and passion I feel for Bob Dylan and his music was so great that it took me out of myself,” Chalamet said. “Without disrespecting my other performances and stuff that is to come, this was a lifetime’s work.”
The Virtuosos Award on Feb. 9 honored eight “up and coming” actors who had breakout performances this year: Monica Barbara (“A Complete Unknown”), Selena Gomez (“Emilia Pérez”), Ariana Grande (“Wicked”), Clarence Maclin (“Sing Sing”), Mikey Madison (“Anora”), John Magaro (“September 5”), Sebastian Stan (“The Apprentice”), and Fernanda Torres (“I’m Still Here”).
Grande earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in “Wicked.” She shared that for her, the highest honor was fulfilling her childhood dream of playing Galinda.
“Galinda is a comedic role, and she’s full of light and it seems fluffy at times, but that comedy can’t land without there being a person with a real human heartbeat beneath the surface,” Grande said. “It’s such a gift to be able to play a character that has so much nuance.”
Gomez admitted that working on “Emilia Pérez” inspired her to shift her career toward acting in the future.
“It’s gonna be very hard for me to ever go back to music after this,” Gomez said.
Clarence Maclin earned critical acclaim for portraying a younger version of himself in “Sing Sing,” a film about the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in New York. Maclin was arrested for robbery and sentenced to 17 years in prison before he was released in 2012.
At Sing Sing, he participated in theater performances through RTA, where he trained in acting. “Sing Sing” is his first film ever.
“The overall message for the movie represents a message to you. The people on the other side of the wall, the people in prison, are just that: people. And they have the ability to change,” Maclin said.
Maclin’s co-star Colman Domingo received the Montecito Award on Feb. 14 for his contributions to film. Domingo shared about the challenge and fulfillment of acting in a film as powerful as “Sing Sing.”
“It’s about putting myself on the line in every single way as an artist. If I’m going to have an impact, if I’m going to do this work that I think is meaningful and can really change lives,” Domingo said. “I think a film like ‘Sing Sing’ is really changing lives. It’s actually doing work. So I have to give everything.”
Actress Zoe Saldaña, who starred in “Emilia Pérez,” received the American Riviera Award on Feb. 12.
In an interview with The Fourth Estate, Saldaña shared about her passion for acting.
“I’ve always been obsessed with storytelling. I feel like it dictates a lot of your life and where you’re going to go and what you’re going to do. Sometimes learning about other people’s experiences kinda saves you from going through something on your own, or it encourages you to take that leap of faith because somebody else in a story did it,” Saldaña said. “Storytelling is really powerful, and it’s what really drives us to do things and remain curious.”
SBIFF attracted over 100,000 attendees this year, all united by a love for film and a desire to explore the world through other perspectives.