The Sunday morning edition of the Santa Barbara News-Press was covered with color photos of a happily smiling Forest Whitaker posing with his pretty wife and pressing the flesh on the red carpet at the final gala of the fest, where the tall, heavy-set, shaven-craned Afro-American "actor’s actor" with the drooping left eye was honored with the festival’s American Riviera award for his overall career trajectory, but especially in recognition of his "role of a lifetime" performance as African ...

Film festivals come in various shapes, sizes, formats and orientations. The currently ongoing 22nd installment of the Santa Barbara Film Festival is a bit off-beat in certain aspects. Lasting eleven days and presenting some 200 films it is certainly not small -- more like "medium to large." In terms of importance, however, while it is not considered to be quite in the same class as the North-American majors, Sundance, Telluride, Chicago, New York, Toronto and Montreal, it can nevertheless ce...