Get Ready to Film Feast

There’s more than just candy and popcorn to feast on in theaters. Cinephiles have a lot of great specialty film festivals coming our way this fall, with a special focus on nature and environmental stories and international culture. 

Celebrating both nature and outdoor adventures through film, the NatureTrack Film Festival is back in town October 9-10. All proceeds from the annual festival support NatureTrack and its mission to foster a lifelong fascination with nature and inspire respectful stewardship of our natural world. 

Since its founding in 2011, NatureTrack has provided thousands of outdoor experiences for K-12 students in Santa Barbara County, providing cost-free outdoor field trips utilizing local trails and beaches throughout the county.

Kicking off on October 9 with an already sold-out opening night celebration of NatureTrack’s 15th anniversary at the Riviera with a screening of Santa Barbara filmmakers’ Keith Malloy, Andrew Schoneberger, and Brett Williams’s documentary First In, Last Out, about the incredible photographer Christa Funk. The festivities continue on Saturday, October 10, at Camino Real Cinemas in Goleta with student screenings in the morning, followed by workshops and more than 20 nature films in the afternoon and evening, and a post-festival social at 9:30 p.m.

World premiere films include The Bear Beneath, a student documentary short about the California grizzly; Cliff Climbers, a documentary short about the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep; and the Chinese short documentary Walking with Elephants, which delves into the environmental history of the Asian elephants. 

Along with a number of short films, features screening at the festival on Saturday are: ‘A’ā (An Islands Twinkle), Wonders of the Wolf, Real Grit, Secrets of Great Salt Lake, The Shot List, Nilgiris — A Shared Wilderness, Alone in Greenland, and Lisbon, the Wild Within.

For the complete film schedule and tickets, see bit.ly/4gQU9cm.

Also coming our way later this month is the first-ever Sri Lankan Film Festival organized outside of Sri Lanka, the Ceylon International Film Festival, taking place October 13-17 at Direct Relief Hatch Hall (6100 Wallace Becknell Rd.). This festival celebrates the vibrant world of South Asian cinema while embracing the creativity of independent filmmakers from around the globe and is dedicated to the art of storytelling, bringing meaningful films to communities and connecting filmmakers with diverse audiences.

For more information, go to ceyiff.com.

Another film feast on the horizon is the inaugural Wild and Free Film Festival. The official launch party is happening October 18 at Elings Park with an outdoor screening of The Goonies. The festival itself takes place November 14-16 at Camino Real Cinemas in Goleta and features more than 25 new and original films, as well as industry panels, filmmaker discussions, and special appearances by prominent figures and notable guests. The films will be announced soon, and will be developed around the themes of “celebrating the wonder and beauty of our natural world, and deepening our understanding of all the species within it.”

For more information, see wildandfreefilm.org.