In a fitting finale to an edition of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival — and one of the finer closing night films in memory — a nearly full house at the Arlington Theatre last Saturday soaked in the comic fizz of I Like Movies. Canadian writer-director Chandler Levack unveiled her debut film in its U.S. premiere and won the love of the crowd, along with garnering the Panavision Award for Independent Cinema at that morning’s awards breakfast at the Belmond El Encanto. She could be excused for thanking “the Santa Barbara Independent Film Festival” in that the festival has always championed cinematic things both “international” and “independent.”
At the center of Levack’s spicy and serio-comedic coming-of-age story is a thoroughly cinema obsessed high schooler whose obsession filters out matters of reality and actual human interaction outside of his narcissistic bubble.
Coming as a closing bookend of a festival stocked with over 200 films from 43 countries, I Like Movies could be a cautionary tale for those of us who dive deep into SBIFF’s bounty of cinema from around the world for ten days, eschewing normal duties and loved ones. But, as SBIFF head Roger Durling extolled in his opening night speech anointing the obsessive cinephile “tribe,” it’s an excusable ten-day feast and escape route from reality, to which we now return, already in progress.