Santa Cruz Film Festival

We will always need Lily Tomlin on our screens. Her peerless comic touch shows no signs of wear and tear. There is still so much she has to show us. There is still so much we have to see. On her 80th birthday, a tribute to the one, the only Lily Tomlin!

Art invites us to know beauty and to solicit it, summon it, from even the most tragic of circumstances. Art reminds us that we belong here. And if we serve, we last. -Toni Morrison, remembering a fearless genius whose words will continue to guide and inspire us. Thank you.

SCFF19 Spirit of Action Award winner Pariah Dog is a documentary about people who care for homeless street dogs in Kolkata (Calcutta) India. If you missed the 2019 screening of PARIAH DOG or want to see it again, you're in luck! PARIAH DOG is being released today to Apple TV and Prime Video TVOD. Congratulations to the director and UCSC alum Jesse Alk on the release! http://www.pariahdogmovie.com

Congratulations to Mia Tate and team on Campesino's worldwide streaming release! Campesino celebrates the lives of Cuban tobacco farmers as introduced to us by an American whose passion has been to photograph them for 15 years. If you missed the SCFF screening of Campesino or want to watch it again, this 2019 Director's Award for Artistic Merit winning film is available on Amazon, iTunes, Apple Play, and Vimeo.

"People often say that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves." -Salma Hayek, magnificent and insightful.

Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster film their kiss on the beach, one of the most iconic shots in cinema history, with the crew of Fred Zinnemann's classic WWII drama FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, which premiered on this day in New York in 1953. Oh how we miss going to the movies!

"I honestly consider that the greatest gift, the reaction that I get from my work. That is a gift which I never, ever take for granted. To be given that by audiences, individuals, on the street, in the theater, is an extraordinary feeling." -Angela Lansbury, acting royalty who has given us all so much!

"Women know that we're not just strong. We're not just vulnerable. We are many things at once, and we're able to see into that complexity." Happy birthday to the fiercely talented Elisabeth Moss!

"I’ve learned a lot. I trust myself. I trust my instincts. I know what I’m gonna do, what I can do, what I can’t do. I’ve been through a lot, and I could go through more, but I hope I don’t have to. But if I did, I’d be able to do it." Remembering the courageous and incomparable Carrie Fisher.

"My plan is to have no plan. If you know what plan you have, life has its own ideas and will take you in any direction it pleases. So my idea about life is to just be open to it, and to go with the flow and go with my gut." -The always versatile and virtuosic Toni Collette!

Orson Welles sits behind the camera during the production of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS , the director's butchered yet brilliant masterpiece, first released on this day in 1942.

"I think that women have to face their fears about being competent technicians because most of the women I’ve met in the industry have consistently been great technicians. We have to look into ourselves every single time we walk onto a set and reassure ourselves that we’re okay and that we know our jobs and that we’re as competent as the rest. Be confident and people will see and believe in your confidence." Happy birthday to filmmaker and cinematography rock star Ellen Kuras, a consistently brilliant collaborator of directors.

"If you can channel the best part of you that is bigger than yourself, where it’s not about your ego and not about getting ahead, then you can have fun and you aren’t jealous of others. You see other people's talent as another branch of your own. You can keep it rooted in joy. Life is long and there are plenty of opportunities to make mistakes. The point of it all is to learn." - Ethan Hawke, cool, calm and collected.

"If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food, it's a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move." Remembering the late Anthony Bourdain, a man who has shaped our sensibilities not only as food lovers but as citizens of the world, on his birthday.