Roger Durling Meets with Film Studies Students

Reviewed by Dorothy Littlejohn at Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Roger Durling, director of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival for the past 10 years, met with Film Studies students at Santa Barbara City College. Here’s what he had to say:

“What is unique about the SBIFF is the timing in relation to the Oscar awards, during the time when the academy is determining who the awards will go to. While many cities have film festivals only a handful become well known – like Sundance, Toronto – because they have a destination city where people want to go in addition to the films. They also need the infrastructure of hotels and transportation and venues. Same at Telluride, as in SB, you can just walk to where you need to go.

Phase 1 of the academy awards is the time to make people aware of the films being nominated. It could be June through January. Phase 2 is when the nominees get selected and Santa Barbara’s festival occurs during Phase 2 – the only one that does and it gives us a unique opportunity.

“How can I select films that win? I’ve always had a knack for selecting winning films”. With Nicole Kidman, Roger selected in June, before she got nominated. Then he was sweating it out until just the other day when she got nominated. She didn’t want to not be nominated and to be honored by this festival.

Roger was born and raised in Panama and was abused at a Catholic school and got kicked out of school because of it. Walter Anneburg set up a scholarship to get minorities to apply to prep schools. Because he could not got school in Panama, Roger applied and received a scholarship. He studied English and wrote a play, which got produced in LA, but didn’t like it there, so he moved to SB and opened the French Bulldog cafe in Summerland.

“One of the board members of the Film Festival would come to my cafe and asked me what I thought about the it. I told him my ideas, so they hired me.” Roger says that February is a better time for a festival than April, when it used to occur.

“Art is in the eye of the beholder. The story is the most important part of a movie. Nostalgia for the Light is an example. Many people don’t like it. It makes you think hard and some people want everything brought to them – pre-digested. The film is ultimately about the human condition, stepping beyond, looking at ourselves as the big picture. Don’t get bogged down with details”, says Roger.

There is a local section in the film festival for Santa Barbara filmmakers, which gets better and better each year.There is no profit from the festival. “We do a lot of outreached during the year and we have free family presentations during the festival – that costs $10,000 and the 3rd weekend at the Riviera costs about $50,000. And there is a free presentation at the Arlington for school kids which includes lunch which costs $60,000. Any profit we generate goes to providing free programs for SB residents. We’ve run our Film Festival financially successfully for several years now. Because of Phase 2, the studio will pay the actors (to attend). San Ysidro Ranch put up Nicole Kidman for a big discount to us.”

Roger is actually a very shy person. His palms get sweaty being in public. He has a “costume” he wears, his current appearance wearing all black and with his hairdo, which allows him to “perform” as the director of the Film Festival.

Students can get internships with the SBIFF. They often get hired to work there in paying positions. And there is a large staff turnover because the work is seasonal for the most part except for seven people.

Thank you, Roger for meeting with us and being so candid and relaxed appearing, even though we know you were nervous.