A Talk with Roger Durling

Reviewed by Linda Mccomb.  Q and A – The Lounge at the Lobero

Roger was interesting to meet and listen too. He talked about the evolution of the Santa Barbara Film Festival. He has been the director for 10 years now. He struck me as a very creative personality with the type of drive to produce great results. He talked about his love of movies and his love for his job. It seems he has helped create many good results for the festival as well as for the city, and many of Santa Barbara’s small business’s.

One of the things I was impressed with was his focus on making the festival represent the spirit of Santa Barbara. I know many surfers in Santa Barbara that really appreciated having surfing films in the festival.  Santa Barbara nature lovers, social justice activists, and environmentalists, were all well represented in the festival.

Roger talked about his childhood and immigrating to the united states. He has gone through a lot of personal struggles and seems to have a positive attitude. He used the analogy of ” If your eggs crack, make scrambled eggs”

Roger also teaches at SBCC and talked about his love of teaching and how the festival and teaching intertwine. He mentioned the 10-10-10 films that are funded by sponsors to benefit Santa Barbara film and writing students.

Roger began his position as director when the festival was struggling  financially. One of the ways he began to turn the finances around was to seek large corporate sponsors instead of small individual sponsors. He used the example of UGG donating $65,000 instead of getting 65 small $1000 donations. The way in which these big donors are presented in the festival is very good advertising and worth every penny of their donation. Before every film a 2 or 3 minute short story about film and Santa Barbara is played, creatively showing all the sponsors.  I think the sponsors will be very satisfied with the results. I know I will be checking out Lynda. com. a company I never heard of before the festival. I think Rogers approach to getting sponsors is very good and everyone including the sponsors benefit.

I enjoyed this Q and A, the hour went by quickly and I enjoyed meeting Roger and can tell he loves his job.