Sherry McCracken photo
In the run-up to the SBIFF, you might have spotted some posters around town announcing another film fest at the Arlington in January. Well, you aren’t seeing double. The Pop-Up Film Festival is a day-long, 12-hour selection of mostly local filmmakers and their work, set up by producer-director Daniel Bollag. A long-time fan of all SBIFF brings to town (he often attends their tribute evenings), Mr. Bollag says the timing is purely coincidental.
Yes, he does wonder if SBIFF has evolved into a “marketing opportunity for bigger studios” and noticed there were also a lot of local, social-justice documentaries that weren’t being shown at the Fest or anywhere else in town. So the Pop-Up Film Festival was born, a full 12 hours of film for which one can buy individual tickets ñ or a whole day-pass. And nearly all films save “No Burqas” have a Santa Barbara-based filmmaker, including Israeli Meni Philip, who recently moved to town.