SBIFF Film Recommendations During Quarantine

Dear Cinephiles, “It's been a long A long time coming But I know a change gonna come Oh, yes it will” Watching Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke singing “A Change is Gonna Come” at the denouement of Regina King’s transcendental directorial debut “One Night in Miami” (2020)...

Dear Cinephiles, “I came to Paris to study and to paint, because Utrillo did, and Lautrec did, and Roualt did. I loved what they created and I thought something would happen to me too. Well, it happened all right. Now, what have I got left? Paris. Maybe that's enough...

Dear Cinephiles, Marmee March : [reading Father March's letter] “Give them all my dear love and a kiss. Tell them I think of them by day, pray for them by night and find my best comfort in their affection at all times. A year seems a very long time to wait before I...

Dear Cinephiles, “Oh, life is like that. Sometimes, at the height of our revelries, when our joy is at its zenith, when all is most right with the world, the most unthinkable disasters descend upon us.” Think for a second about that sentiment expressed in “A Christmas...

Dear Cinephiles, Robert: “Life’s too short to waste time on things you don’t absolutely love.” Sylvie: “But how do you know if you love something absolutely?” Robert: “I guess when it’s the only thing that matters.” Eugene Ashe’s “Sylvie’s Love” (2020) is the most...

Dear Cinephiles, Prime Minister : “General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers...

Dear Cinephiles, “I wonder, uh, all these mornings you've been sitting in my study, sitting, have you had any moments of stillness? Because you're right, Ruben. The world does keep moving, and it can be a damn cruel place. But for me, those moments of stillness, that...

Dear Cinephiles, “I'm dreaming of a White Christmas. Just like the ones I used to know” The song White Christmas had been used in the film “Holiday Inn” (1942) starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. The ballad went on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song. It was...

Dear Cinephiles, "Christmas Spirit is about believing, not seeing. If the whole world saw me, all would be lost.” The yuletide comedy “Elf” (2003) has become a perennial favorite of mine. It happens to have the right amount of wit, silliness and warmth while avoiding...

Dear Cinephiles, “Traditionally, the Ekdahls give a party to the theatre staff down on the stage. The guests are what you’d call a rather mixed lot. Quite different from what we’re used to here in the theater restaurant. Nevertheless, I don’t want to see any...

Dear Cinephiles, “I've been wanting you For so long, it's a shame” The most rapturous movie moment of 2020 comes in the middle of Steve McQueen’s “Lovers Rock.” I think one of the reasons why it affected me so much was because I didn’t expect something like this from...

Dear Cinephiles, Catherine: “You said, ‘I love you.’ I said, ‘Wait.’ I was about to say, ‘Take me.’ You said, ‘Go away.’ How could I have waited this long to recommend a François Truffaut film – one of the most influential directors, and one of the founders of the oh...

Dear Cinephiles, King-Lu: “It’s the getting started that’s the puzzle. No way for a poor man to start. You need capital or some form of miracle.” Cookie: “You need leverage.” King-Lu: “Or a crime.” The conversation above takes place about one third into Kelly...

Dear Cinephiles, George Bailey: “Now we can get through this thing alright, we’ve got to stick together though. We’ve got to have faith in each other.” I hadn’t sat through Frank Capra’s “It’s A Wonderful Life” (1946) for a very long time until a few days ago, and not...

Dear Cinephiles, “There must be a way to rid this community, and by extension the nation, of this cancer of intolerance.” I was fortunate to attend a high school in New Jersey (The Peddie School) that strived for inclusivity. I look back at the time I attended (from...

Dear Cinephiles, Apu: “Didi, have you ever seen a train?” Durga: “Sure.” Sarbojaya Ray: “Don't lie.” Apu: “You know where the tracks are? Where?” Durga: “Past the big meadow and beyond the rice fields.” Apu: “Shall we go one day?” And we do go see the train. We go to...

Dear Cinephiles, “And as each one of you go in your individual lives, I want you take this with you. The Whitfields are a family. We will always be a family. And no one and nothing can change that.” It is indeed a special moment. Right before there’s been a lot of...

Dear Cinephiles, “I want to spend a few minutes talking with you about your relationships okay? Because they can affect your health. Did you know that? “ I can sit through tough subject matter. As long as it is well-made, I will end up exhilarated on the other end....

Dear Cinephiles, Therese: (holding a camera) “A friend told me I should be more interested in humans.” Carol: “And how’s that going?” Todd Haynes’ “Carol” (2015) is an intoxicating love story. It’s swoon-worthy. It casts a spell over you – and you just get swept in...

Dear Cinephiles, Julia: “You seem to be able to make me feel as if everything’s going to be alright.” Dudley: “Well it could be if people could only learn to behave like human beings.” I love the holidays. In particular, I love the feeling of hope that they engender...

Dear Cinephiles, Cecilia: “There’s nothing left for you to take. You’ve already taken it all.” By far, one of the best films of 2020 is “The Invisible Man.” It was released in late February - coincidentally or appropriately - during the same week of the sentencing of...

Dear Cinephiles, “I know about losing things. But the magic isn’t just in what you’ve lost. It’s in what you still have.” The above lines are spoken in the totally needed new holiday adventure and spectacle “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey” (2020). I didn’t know...

Dear Cinephiles, Ollie: “Your choices are only as good as your options are.” The Western is one of my favorite genres in movies. I like the classic period of it, representing the spirit of a new undomesticated American frontier with its open landscape mountain ranges,...

Dear Cinephiles, “Mabel is not crazy, she's unusual. She's not crazy, so don't say she's crazy.” I don’t know about you, but I have found myself in the last nine months in certain emotional and mental situations that have made me question my own sanity. There was an...

Dear Cinephiles, “It would not be true to say that I am no longer lonely. I have made myself articulate and understood to people in many parts of the world, and this is something we all wish to do whether we’re crippled or not. Yet like everyone else, I am acutely...

Greetings SBIFF Family! Join the feast and festivities this weekend as Peppermint Patty invites herself and her friends over to Charlie Brown's for Thanksgiving. Watch Charlie try to create a special holiday while all of the friends learn what is most important about...

Dear Cinephiles, "If this is their idea of Christmas, I gotta be here for New Year's." “Die Hard” (1988) is hands down one of the best action movies. Since it takes place on Christmas Eve, it has become a great alternative to the classic holiday fare we will soon be...

Dear Cinephiles, “The heart is a very, very resilient little muscle.” Throughout the years, the line above has caused me to get very emotional – and on this special day – it’s the perfect summation of how some of us may feel. They’re uttered towards the end of Woody...

Dear Cinephiles, “You guys moved to the west long ago. You think one’s life belongs to oneself. But that’s the difference between the East and the West. In the East, a person’s life is part of a whole. Family. Society.” On this eve to what I consider to be my favorite...

Dear Cinephiles, “I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves. The enemy was in us.” I hadn’t seen “Platoon” (1986) since its release. Oliver Stone’s pulverizing take on our war in Vietnam which went on to win the Oscar for best picture...

Dear Cinephiles, “No growth without resistance. No action without reaction. No desire without restraint. Now give yourself up and find yourself again.” Could those lines be more appropriate to describe this infamous year? In the past months we’ve been tested. I...

Dear Cinephiles, Thatcher: “You always used money to buy things.” Kane: “If I hadn’t been really rich, I might have been a really great man.” “Citizen Kane” (1941) never gets old. When I first started teaching at Santa Barbara City College seventeen years ago, I would...

Dear Cinephiles, “I found a new book which only tells the truth. It’s called Facebook. I learn so many facts there.” – Sandra Jessica Parker Sagdiyev Underneath all of the shock and vulgarity in “Borat Subsequent Film” (2020) there’s a determination from the artist to...

Dear Cinephiles, “Time is what you make of it. Time is unbiased. Time is lost. Time flies. This situation has just been a long time. A really long time,” Justus Rich says about his family’s twenty year wait for dad to be freed from incarceration. Last week the...

Dear Cinephiles, “I am coming, I am coming. Here I am. Neither a woman nor a man. We are joined. We are one with a human face. I am on earth, and I am in outer space. I’m being born and I am dying.” Those words are sung towards the end of Sally Potter’s “Orlando”...

Dear Cinephiles, “You can’t judge them by the way they look.” The big mistrust and division between our two political parties has been at the forefront of the news, alongside Georgia's sudden, extreme political importance – and all year we’ve been hearing about and...

Dear Cinephiles, “Look it, I thought I was supposed to be getting a change of scenery, and so far, I’ve been in a train and a room, and a car and a room, and a room and a room. Well maybe that’s alright for a bunch of powdered geegaws like you lot, but I’m feeling...

Dear Cinephiles, “There’s always something wrong with you” says Cleo’s lover. “It’s your imagination. People’s minds are crammed full of cancer and heart trouble. My disease is phone calls and appointments.” Agnès Varda’s “Cléo from 5 to 7” (1961) is a film that ought...

Dear Cinephiles, “Here’s to the ones who dream, foolish as they may seem. Here’s to the hearts that ache; here’s to the mess we make.” There’s an interconnection of career aspirations, fate, and love blended in with the sleight-of-hand quality of cinema in the...

Dear Cinephiles, “My whole life I’ve been told what my future was gonna look like. I just wanna find my own thing.” Those words are spoken by Elijah – a young African American in Memphis who dreams of being a Master Sommelier - in “Uncorked” (2020). It’s an unassuming...

Dear Cinephiles, “God Loves A Terrier!” Six weeks ago, I was rescued by a Frenchie terrier mix named Sophia. It’s one of the most wonderful things that has happened to me in 2020. Now I have someone to look after me, and make sure I don’t get too anxious. With that in...

Dear Cinephiles, “I’m contemptuous of something inside of you you either can’t help, or make no attempt to; your so-called ‘strength,' your prejudice against weakness, your blank intolerance. You’ll never be a first-class human being or a first-class woman, until...

Dear Cinephiles, Richard Schultz: “Sir, there are people who will see this as the Justice Department restraining free speech, and there were people who see these men as martyrs.” One of the best movies of 2020 hands down is Aaron Sorkin’s head-spinningly timely and...

Dear Cinephiles, “I thought my ideas were so clear. I wanted to make an honest film. No lies whatsoever. I thought I had something so simple to say. Something useful to everybody. A film that could help bury forever all those dead things we carry within ourselves.” “8...

Dear Cinephiles, Wanda Gerschwitz: “Let me correct you on a couple of things, okay? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not every man for himself.” I hadn’t laughed like this in a long time. Maybe ever. I literally couldn’t catch my breath. I...

Dear Cinephiles, “They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way!” Sean Connery exemplified the cinema of my childhood. One of my first memories of the movies was when my dad took me...

Dear Cinephiles, “Thanks to you I can keep my faith in men.” “Rashomon” (1950) is indispensable cinema. What other movie do you know whose very title has become part of our lexicon? It’s now used to describe when an event is given multiple contradictory explanations...

Dear Cinephiles, Ben Bradlee: “We’re under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there. Nothing’s riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country.” “All the President’s Men” (1976)...

Dear Cinephiles, “I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” In this week where I feel tethered to uncertainty, I turned to my old friend “Casablanca”...

Dear Cinephiles, Karras: “Why her? Why this girl?” Merrin: “I think the point is to make us despair. To see ourselves as... animal and ugly. To make us reject the possibility that God could love us.” My earliest memory of being scared at a movie was watching the witch...