Hollywood Elsewhere will be gladly returning to the Santa Barbara Film Festival next week. I’ll remain there for eight or nine days. The SBIFF is the friendliest, sexiest, easiest-to-navigate major film festival in the entire civilized world. Start to finish, it feels a sea breeze. And with the new CDC ruling we might not have to wear masks all the time!

The Directors of the Year Award tribute on Thursday, March 3rd (Spielberg, Anderson, Branagh, Campion, Hamaguchi) is the kickoff event.

On Friday night Spencer‘s Kristen Stewart will sit for a longish, in-depth interview at the Arlington while receiving the Riviera Award.

The next day brings the dual Writers and Producers Panels on Saturday, 3.5.22. The writers will include Kenneth Branagh, Jane Campion, Zach Baylin (King Richard), Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter), Sian Heder (CODA), Adam McKay (Don’t Look Up), Denis Villeneuve (Dune) and Eskil Vogt (The Worst Person in the World), and will be tossed the usual softball questions by IndieWire’s Anne Thompson.

The Producers Panel, set for the afternoon of March 5 and moderated by the mild-mannered Glenn Whipp will include Laura Berwick (Belfast), Miles Dale (Nightmare Alley), Kevin Messick (Don’t Look Up), Rita Moreno (West Side Story), Sara Murphy (Licorice Pizza), Mary Parent (Dune), Tanya Seghatchian (The Power of the Dog), Patrick Wachsberger (CODA), Tim White (King Richard) and Teruhisa Yamamoto (Drive My Car).

The SBIFF Virtuosos Award ceremony will happen at the Arlington that evening (Saturday 3.5) with TCM’s Dave Karger moderating. Belfast‘s Ciaran Hinds, Caitriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan, plus Ariana DeBose (West Side Story), Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza), Emilia Jones (CODA), Troy Kotsur (CODA), Simon Rex (Red Rocket) and Saniyya Sidney (King Richard).

The following morning (Sunday, March 6) will launch the Animation Panel, with SBIFF executive director Roger Durling moderating.

Not to mention King Richard‘s Will Smith and Aunjanue Ellis receiving the Outstanding Performers of the Year Award in a ceremony that begins at 8 pm on Sunday, 3.6 at the Arlington theatre, (b) Penelope Cruz receiving the Montecito Award on Tuesday, 3.8 at the Arlington, (c) Benedict Cumberbatch receiving the Cinema Vanguard award on Wednesday, 3.9 at the Arlington, (d) Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman receiving the Maltin Modern Master Award on Thursday, 3.10 at the Arlington, and (e) a ten-year anniversary screening of David O. Russell‘s Silver Lining Playbook with a Russell q & a to follow.

The SBIFF runs from March 2nd through 12th.

On the evening of Thursday, March 3rd, the Santa Barbara Film Festival will present an on-stage interview with the five 2022 nominees for the 2022 Best Director Oscar — The Power of the Dog‘s Jane Campion, Drive My Car‘s Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Licorice Pizza‘s Paul Thomas Anderson, Belfast‘s Kenneth Branagh and West Side Story‘s Steven Spielberg.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg, always the gentle diplomat, will moderate the group interview on the stage of Santa Barbara’s Arlington Theatre. Here are some suggested questions that Feinberg might want to consider asking….hah!

Spielberg question #1: Leaving aside the Covid diminishment factor, what were your commercial expectations or hopes for West Side Story before it opened? Did you think it might appeal to Millennials and Zoomers and GenXers, or just boomers? Put another way, what led you to remake a famous 1961 musical that everyone’s seen and which won a ton of Oscars 60 years ago? You obviously did a beautiful job of re-energizing the material and all the critics loved it, but younger audiences totally blew it off. Thoughts?

Spielberg question #2: You’ve been working fairly steadily with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski for a quarter century now — The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, War of the Worlds, The Adventures of Tintin, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The Post, Ready Player One, West Side Story and the upcoming The Fabelmans. And a majority of these films bear Kaminski’s famous visual trademark — subdued, grayish colors with a milky, semi-hazy lighting scheme. If you could be magically transported back to the ’70s and early ’80s and had the chance to re-shoot your classic films from that era — Duel, Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. — would you bring Janusz along so he could give the subdued grayish-milky treatment to those films also?

Campion question: We all know that you’re locked to win the Best Director Oscar. The message has gone out that it’s your time, and that we need another woman to win, and that Netflix will finally have a major Oscar to its credit. And there’s no question that The Power of the Dog is very well made and exquisitely finessed. But these two factors aside, what was it that convinced you that a grim story about a toxic closet case and a belligerent asshole in 1920s Montana…a story of this macho dickhead making life miserable for his brother’s wife and how her gay son has his revenge…what was it about this story that told you “this…this is a story about closeted sexuality that needs to be told…this is a story that 2021 audiences are hungry to see!”

Branagh question: You’ve made a film about the struggles of a Protestant Belfast family during “the troubles”, but without really explaining what the troubles were about or indicating what your personal views are (or were) about the occupation of northern Ireland by British troops, and what the Catholics were fighting for, and whether or not the whole Protestant, anti-Catholic thing had merit or not. Since you didn’t get into it in your film, would you care to discuss it now?

This metaphorical occurrence happened earlier today in Kyiv. A certain party has yelled at me for having joined Newsweek, the NY Post, the Guardian and others in posting this video. “Where is the proof that the tank is Russian?,” etc. HE reply: The common consensus, backed up by reporting, is that the tank was definitely Russian.