Local Artist Day at SBIFF

Wednesday at SBIFF could be unofficially considered local artists day, in a manner of speaking. Three documentaries, though wildly different, took in the lives and work — and death — of Santa Barbara-based artists: celebrated jazz tenor saxist Charles Lloyd in the doc The Monk and the Mermaid, videographer Larry Nimmer’s voyeuristic but perversely fascinating Michael Jackson: the Untold Story of Neverland, with insider’s access, and Justin Rowe’s fine Crazy Art.

On the truly local local artist front, Crazy Art offers a fascinating portrait of three art-devoted schizophrenics, Rodger Casier, Trinaty Lopez Wakefield, and Lesley Grogan, who use artistic expression as a means of therapy, quelling inner voices, and as a way of life. Guided by writer and narrator J.T. Turner (head of the mental health agency Phoenix of Santa Barbara), the artists speak articulately, openly, and movingly about their struggles, and about the possibility of transcendence — even if sometimes fleeting — through making and thinking about art.

Shot mostly in Europe, the latest Lloyd doc covers familiar ground, but brings us up to date with Lloyd’s newest projects — his fine new quartet and “Sangam” trio — and the highlight is a short, typically pretzel-logical Ornette Coleman interview. Nimmer worked as a videographer for the Jackson trial defense, so his perspective inclines towards Jackson’s innocence, as do we, especially after the awe-inspiring doc of late last year, This is It, which showed the world, posthumously, what genius Jackson was still made of up until his death last June. Peripherally, Nimmer’s film reminds us that as Santa Barbarans, in some way, we share in a kind of collective shame, for a local witch hunt which no doubt helped lead to Jackson’s early death. He should be performing, and coming home to Neverland, as we speak.