Roman Baratiak – Ted Mills

A buffet of arts: Arts & Lectures new season welcomes new artists, many favorites

August 8, 2014September 14, 2014 tedmills Leave a comment

FROM TOP: "Schoolhouse Rock Live!" comes to UCSB's Campbell Hall on Oct. 12 - Tim Trumble photo David Sedaris, may 4 - UCSB Arts & Lectures W. Kamau Bell, Feb.5 - UCSB Arts & Lectures Cirque Ziva, Jan. 24 - Amitava Sarkar photo — FROM TOP:

“Schoolhouse Rock Live!” comes to UCSB’s Campbell Hall on Oct. 12 – Tim Trumble photo

David Sedaris, may 4 – UCSB Arts & Lectures

W. Kamau Bell, Feb.5 – UCSB Arts & Lectures

Cirque Ziva, Jan. 24 – Amitava Sarkar photo

The new season of Arts & Lectures is a few months away. Plenty of familiar faces return for this season — David Sedaris rounds it out in May as usual — but there are also a lot of new acts rolling through to get excited about. As UCSB’s arts series expands its venues to downtown, there’s a sort of delicate balance between campus and downtown.

“Much of our audience is community oriented, so it often makes sense to have it downtown,” says Roman Baratiak, Director Celeste Billeci’s second in command. The organization has its eyes on using The New Vic more too. And dance usually does better downtown.

Silver Screen, Summer Nights: UCSB Arts & Lecture’s free screening series highlights Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd

July 4, 2014September 16, 2014 tedmills Leave a comment

In January, UCSB Arts&Lectures screened Harold Lloyd’s “Safety Last” at the Granada with pianist Michael Mortilla accompanying. “It was a non-stop laugh-fest the entire time,” A&L’s Roman Baratiak says. “All ages were there and it was super inspiring … People gasped.” Mr. Baratiak is referring to the infamous 20-minute sequence where Lloyd scales the outside of a building and at one point winds up hanging from a clock.

Mr. Baratiak took that inspiration and has made classic silent comedy the theme for this year’s Summer Film Series, which screens both at Campbell Hall and at the Courthouse’s Sunken Gardens. Last year’s Hitchcock series got the biggest crowds in the Summer Series and it was time to make things a bit more fun. So for the fifth annual event, A&L will be screening two films each, from Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, with extra shorts thrown in for good measure.

Master of Suspense – Films at the Courthouse return with a summer of Hitchcock

June 28, 2013October 22, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Alfred Hitchcock Margaret Herrick Library photos — Alfred Hitchcock
Margaret Herrick Library photos

Roman Baratiak’s longtime dream of screening summer movies in the Sunken Garden came true some four years ago, and he’s been watching the crowds come every year since. For the first three years, this Arts & Lectures summer series has stuck with genre films: One year it was musicals, another it was science fiction, and another was classic monster movies. But this year is the first time Mr. Baratiak & Co. have settled on the works of one director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starting this Wednesday with arguably Mr. Hitchcock’s best film, “Vertigo,” the summer series will screen eight of the director’s best suspenseful works, ending with “Strangers on a Train” on Friday, Aug. 23.

Most of the films — except for “Shadow of a Doubt” — screen on a Wednesday at UCSB’s Campbell Hall, for those who want to have a more traditional moviegoing experience, but on the Friday following, bring your blankets and chairs and get ready for some classic films.

Climbing the Mountain of Film – 37th Annual Banff comes to the Arlington

February 22, 2013December 3, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Once upon a time, there was a film festival in a far off distant land called Alberta, and when it was finished with its selection of short features, it would gather the best of the best and send them out into the world on tour, for other people to see. At first only a few people knew about this tour of festival films, and a place like, say, Campbell Hall at UCSB could comfortably hold those fans of mountaineering, skiing, and environmental travel videos.

But word of mouth spread, and now we find ourselves this coming week with two different film programs on two different nights — Wednesday and Thursday — filling the Arlington. It’s time for the Best of the 37th Annual Banff Mountain Film Festival.