Image Courtesy: Rebecca Sapp
Santa Barbara Film Festival, a festival on the American riviera which is considered an important pitstop for movies on the way to the Oscars, has announced its plan to return as an in-person event for its 2022 edition, thereby joining the increasing list of film festivals all around the world which plan to host physical events, returning to the way they used to in the pre-Covid times.
The 37th edition of the festival will take place from 2 March 2022 to 12 March 2022, as announced by the organizers of the festival on Friday. The festival will be held throughout the coastal city of Santa Barbara that is less than 100 miles north of Los Angeles, and passes for the festival are expected to go on sale in August of this year. Executive director of the festival Roger Durling stated that SBIFF is eager to welcome everyone back to Santa Barabara for the collective experience of cinema and back to engaging in face-to-face interactions about cinema after more than a year of viewing experience at homes.
The previous edition of the festival, which was held from 31 March to 10 April had to adjust to the pandemic situation and had to adapt to screenings online along with a few screenings in a beachside drive-in theater, and consisted of 47 world premieres and the usual Oscar-season lineup of tributes, a host of Question & Answer session along with panels. The previous edition also had participants including Sacha Baron Cohen, Bill Murray, Carey Mulligan, Amanda Seyfried, Riz Ahmed, Maria Bakalova, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Andra Day, Sidney Flanigan, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim, Zendaya, Delroy Lindo, David Fincher, Chloe Zhao, Lee Isaac Chung, and Thomas Vinterberg.