Read more from our preview of SBIFF 2026 here.
Over the years, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) has kicked off its grand event in gala-style blowout converging on the historic Arlington Theatre, replete with klieg lights beaming, red carpet, and requisite regalia. Whatever the film showcased on that night, and however it is received, crowds show up for the notable festive occasion of it all. The conventional wisdom is that the vast pageantry of cinema from the world — with 200-plus films — will generate its own centrifugal buzz. But you gotta start somewhere.
The SBIFF opener list over its past 40 years has included last year’s light literate comedy Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, which went onto a theatrical run, Sarah’s Key (with Kristin Scott Thomas) in 2011, and a slight but enjoyable Woody Allen film, Melinda and Melinda, in 2005, (before Woody Allen became alleged sex offender non grata).
For opening-night film number 41 in the SBIFF annals, the film will be A Mosquito in the Ear, given its U.S. premiere on Wednesday, February 4. Writer/director Nicola Rinciari, along with co-writer Emily Dillard, have adapted Andrea Ferraris’s graphic novel Una Zanzara nell’Orecchio, with a plot and location shot in India, trying into the festival’s agenda with its international spin.
In the saga, an American couple travels to India to take home an adopted 4-year-old orphan named Sarvari. Good intentions aside, things go wrong and wronger, with the process, the child’s reluctance to leave the orphanage, and the marriage itself.
The film stars Jake Lacy (The Office, White Lotus) and the Iran-born Nazanin Boniadi (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power). Italian-born director Rinciari, who has worked on animation and live action productions in Hollywood, is making his feature film debut with the film. In a mission statement, the director asserts, “I feel called to communicate the beauty of life even in its faults and harshness. This is reflected in my work across all genres from fantasy, comedy, to drama. Every form of expression is a form of poetry.”
He continued, “In my work, I aim to show the audience a piece of our reality from a different perspective. I start with an issue, a topic, a feeling, and transform it into a story that connects with the viewer both on an intellectual and an emotional level.”
Rinciari and co-writer Dillard will be on hand at the Arlington gala, with others to be announced.
It’s a night to crank up the klieg lights and bask in cinema in a community hub. Early the following morning will be the unveiling of the eagerly awaited and lavishly renovated and rethought SBIFF McHurley Film Center downtown, which will be the five-screen hub of festival action for the next 10 days.
See sbiff.org.
