Wonderful Timing and Auspicious Home Basing at the Fest

SCENE, JANUARY MORNING PRESS CONFERENCE AT SULLIVAN GOSS, UNVEILING SBIFF 2026 POSTER

At the annual poster-unveiling SBIFF press conference at Sullivan Goss a few weeks ago, rubbing the sleep out of our holiday-colored senses, SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling started his introduction by noting that “coming here, I was thinking of a song we’ve just been hearing over the holidays: ‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year.’” 

The “wonderful” element officially kicked in, in earnest, at the Arlington Theatre last night, with the Opening Night gala of the film The Mosquito in the Ear, in its U.S. premiere. More significantly, the full slate of 200-plus films and panels and tributes, and more, begins in a rightly much-adoed new festival home, the grandly renovated — and re-created — McHurley Film Center downtown.  

SCENE, RIBBON-CUTTING MOMENT, OPENING OF MCHURLEY FILM CENTER

Just on Monday, the eagerly awaited opening of the lavishly renovated/redesigned McHurley Film Center, at 916 State Street, stirred up a crowd and a major civic and cultural buzz. Durling was on hand, of course, to officiate and give a thumbnail history of this noble project and offer proper gratitude to the many dream-making parties behind the project. Mayor Randy Rowse brought his Claes Oldenburg–scaled scissors to cut the ceremonial ribbon along with Ms. “McHurley” (the new nickname of Nora McNeely Hurley, who has been a beneficent donor and supporter to the festival with her husband, Michael, for years).

Durling was again in song-citing mode at the end of his speech, calling up the suddenly relevant tune “Young at Heart,” narrating rather than trying to channel Sinatra in song: 

SBIFF is middle-aged, at 41, but also embarking on a second childhood, the McHurley era. And I quote: 

Fairy tales can come true
It can happen to you
If you’re young at heart
For it’s hard you will find
To be narrow of mind
If you’re young at heart
You can go to extremes
With impossible schemes

“Fairy tales can come true,” Durling surmised before passing the microphone to “McHurley.” “This gives us a home and ensures our future for generations to come.”

SCENE, SBIFF OPENING NIGHT, ARLINGTON THEATRE

Beyond the klieg-light beacon and glitzy accoutrements of opening night, Durling shifted gears, to his credit in terms of speechifying from the Arlington stage. Words of welcome to tourists, locals, and film geeks, by Mayor Rowse and Durling, provided the expected welcome mat greeting, with special props going to the Film Center. 

But then Durling launched into a short but powerful speech, essentially addressing the current conflagration through which the power of art and the frightening machinations of Trumpian authoritarianism have the nation, and the world, in an unfolding chokehold. Alas, Durling didn’t name names, except to make a telling reference to Bob Fosse’s film Cabaret, in which Weimar Republic–era artistic freedom of expression — and freedom more generally — is being threatened and quelched by the rise of the Third Reich. 

Durling didn’t have to name names. As he pointed out, Cabaret (the musical and film) “is a warning against passivity … do something and do it now … beware of the dangers of apathy.”

What could seem like a slide cross-reference to the travesty of the so-called Trump Kennedy center, Durling cited an apt JFK quote inserted in Barret Boisson’s festival poster: “If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.”

Durling continued, “I beseech you to remember that we have to protect the arts and human rights, immigration, and the right to love whoever we choose…. The arts ultimately unite. Two thousand of us are together, under one roof.”

And what of the opening night film? A Mosquito in the Ear is a touching new film; it’s a bit long. First-time director Nicola Rinciari’s adaptation of Andrea Ferraris’s reality-based graphic novel Una Zanzara nell’Orecchio addresses intracultural adoption on the surface and, more deeply, the American imperialist impulses, however well-intentioned. An American couple (Jake Lacy and Nazanin Boniadi) travels to India to adopt an orphaned girl, Sarvari (Ruhi Pal), who proves more feisty than they expected. 

At the crux of her feelings of both liberation and dread is a festering alienation from being plucked out of her home, the orphanage, and her native culture and language. Vis-à-vis the title, she tells her caretaker nun character, “When I hear them speak English, it sounds like a mosquito in the ear.”

With poignancy, comic touches, and tenderness along the way, the film skillfully steers our empathy toward both the parents-in-training and the girl, who, at one point, they feel like they are kidnapping. Spoiler alert: All’s well that ends well. As SBIFF opening films go, this is one of the sweeter contenders.

Heads-Upping 

Looking at the programming roster for Thursday night and Friday, I can vouch for the following films, having gotten a peek at advance screeners:

Space Cadet (Kid Koala; Canada)
Mockbuster (Anthony Frith)
Little Lorraine (Andy Hines; Canada)
Adam’s Sake (Laura Wandel, Belgium)
Dear Lara (Lara St. John)
A Life Illuminated (Tasha Van Zandt; U.S.)
Steal This Story, Please! (Tia Lessin, Carl Deal; U.S.)
The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho; Brazil) 

At SBIFF 2026, in its first blush, the songs remain the same, but bolder and with a home to call its own.