Santa Barbara film festival to feature stars, homegrown moviemaking

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival lands at an interesting time on the industry calendar: It begins Thursday, less than a week after the conclusion of a Sundance Film Festival that had only two multimillion-dollar sales and just two days after the unveiling of the latest round of Oscar nominations.

But the timing is appropriate for an event that bills itself as an intersection of independent spirit and Hollywood glitz.

Although the festival, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, will open for the first time with an independent project that has yet to secure distribution, Derek Magyar’s directorial debut, “Flying Lessons,” about 24 Academy Award nominees will attend the festival in various capacities.

Sandra Bullock and Carey Mulligan will be honored, Jeff Bridges will be on hand Feb. 14 for a daylong tribute that will include a screening of his latest, “Crazy Heart,” and director James Cameron will speak to 3,000 schoolchildren arriving by bus to watch his 3-D film “Aliens of the Deep.”

Executive director Roger Durling’s ability to draw A-list talent to the 11-day event has helped raise the festival’s overall visibility, but he says the secret to securing big names is advance planning.

“It’s just about asking them early,” Durling said. “I think our reputation has cemented our access.”

Durling said he opted to open with a Santa Barbara-bred film without distribution in part to shed light on a smaller movie from a young director during a tough economy but also to celebrate local filmmaking.

“One hundred years ago in 1910, Flying A studios opened here in Santa Barbara,” he said. “It just felt like the right time to showcase a local film.”

Magyar chose to premiere “Flying Lessons” -- which stars “Taken’s” Maggie Grace and was shot in nearby Santa Ynez -- in Santa Barbara in part due to Durling’s efforts.

“What I knew was Roger had taken the festival to another level,” Magyar said. “It moved up a tier and is taken very seriously. With all the talent that he’s attracted, you could tell it was becoming a well-known and well-attended festival.”

Last year, 70,000 tickets to the festival were sold -- 40% of which were purchased by people who live outside of Santa Barbara. This year, Durling is expecting sales to be up and does not think the recession will hurt attendance.

At a time when film festivals like Jackson Hole and Cinevegas have closed or been postponed, he said he feels fortunate that his event is still alive and well.

“Arts grants have been cut all around, but we’re bigger than ever,” he said. “We were fortunate to have a lot of corporate sponsors like Nestle and Coca-Cola step up and make up for lack of grant funds.”

The six programmers who select the films being screened this year travel to some festivals but mostly scour the Internet for buzz, said Candace Schermerhorn, director of programming.

“We cast a pretty wide net because we have a pretty open audience,” said Schermerhorn, who helped whittle down this year’s 3,000 submissions to 200 films from 45 countries. “They’re really willing to look at different genres and styles of filmmaking. It’s a pretty eclectic slate.”

Some of the films Schermerhorn is particularly excited about include “Herman,” an Iraqi film about two lovers divided during a massacre on the Kurds, and a film called “Twenty” from Iran about an old man in the process of shutting down his banqueting hall.

“We’re not a market film festival like Sundance or Toronto,” Durling said. “We’re a showcase festival, where you don’t show a film to get bought and sold, you go to get exposure and be seen. It’s a chance for audiences to see films that they normally would not see.”

Like Magyar’s film, for one.

“It’s an exciting avenue to first be able to show my film to 2,200 people on opening night,” the 33-year-old actor and director said. “I can’t wait to say ‘Please enjoy the film’ and go and become a nice, happy drunk for the next two hours.”

amy.kaufman@latimes. com