..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

March 6, 2003

18TH SANTA BARBARA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF JURIED COMPETITIONS

FESTIVAL REPORTS 20% INCREASE IN ATTENDANCE OVER 2002 AND MORE SOLD-OUT FILMS THAN EVER BEFORE

March 7, 2003, Santa Barbara - The 18th Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) announced the winners of its three official competitive sections - International; American Perspectives, and Documentary at the Hotel Santa Barbara here today, as the festival neared the close of its most successful edition. Winners of the Audience Awards will be announced on Saturday, March 8, after all ballots have been tabulated. All winning films will be screened again on Sunday, March 9. The festival wraps up Sunday evening, with a gala screening of the drama The Heart of Me, starring Paul Bettany, Olivia Williams and Helena Bonham Carter.

The winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the International Competition was Ken Loach for his film Sweet Sixteen. A Special Jury Prize in this section was awarded to Pan Nalin for Samsara, and the jury also chose to recognize the performance of Lena Endre, for her role in Music for Weddings and Funerals.

The American Perspectives Jury Prize, recognizing achievement in direction, was awarded to Shane Dax Taylor for The Grey. A Special Jury Prize in this section was awarded to Greg Pritikin for Dummy. Both of these films were World Premieres.

Lastly, the Documentary Jury Prize went to Jeff Blitz for
his film Spellbound. The Fund for Santa Barbara Social Justice Award went to Santa Barbara filmmaker Renee Bergan for her film Sadaa E Zan, shot in Afghanistan.

Information on the award-winning films in the juried competitions can be found below.

"As the jury chair the past four years, without a doubt, this is the
strongest line-up of films we have ever seen at the Santa Barbara
International Film Festival," said Ilene Kahn Power. "There was a unanimous feeling on part of both juries that this was the strongest combination of world-class talent and emerging American filmmakers," she added.

"On behalf of the Festival, we are proud to have had such an outstanding slate of films from all over the world this year, and we congratulate all of the winners. Audience response has been extremely positive, and we are pleased to see that they have embraced the new sidebars we created this year -- the Rosebud Project; Surf Sessions; Showcase Planet Earth and Journey to
Italy." said executive director Jon Fitzgerald.

The three separate juries that voted on films for awards were comprised of notable film industry veterans in various areas of practice. Chairing both the International and American Perspectives juries was Ilene Kahn Power, award-winning film and cable producer (Gia, Stalin and recently USA's Traffic miniseries). Sitting on the American Perspectives jury with Kahn Power were Gretchen Rennell Court, Casting Director of Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money, Robert Redford's The Horse Whisperer, Coppola's The Cotton Club, Flashdance and Reds, indie distributor and former Miramax and Fine Line executive Marc Halperin.

The International Jury was comprised of Ron Nyswaner, screenwriter of the Oscar winning Philadelphia and Soldier's Girl, Producer Susan Cartsonis, former President of Windancer Films, Producer of What Women Want, Where The Heart Is, and senior executive at 20th Century Fox, and Peter Golub, Composer of The Laramie Project for HBO and Director of the Sundance Festival's Composer lab.

The members of the Documentary Jury were Mace Perona, a professor in the Department of Film at Santa Barbara City College; Janet Walker, professor and Chair of the Department of Film Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, and internationally renowned film and music journalist Josef Woodard.

The 18th SBIFF opened with a sold-out gala screening of James Foley's thriller Confidence, starring Ed Burns, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, and Andy Garcia, and featured films from over 30 countries, including 10 World Premieres, 11 US Premieres, 11 foreign Oscar submissions, and many high-profile Southern California premieres featuring name filmmakers and/or stars.

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INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION WINNERS

MUSIC FOR WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS
2002 Norway 97 min 35mm
Dir Unni Straume
Sara, recently divorced and mourning the loss of her only child, rents her basement to Bogdan, a Serbian musician who brings the whole band along and completely changes her life.

SAMSARA
2001 India/Germany 126 min 35mm
Dir Pan Nalin
A spiritual love story set in the majestic landscape of Ladakh, Himalayas. Samsara is a quest: one man's struggle to find spiritual enlightenment by renouncing the world, and one woman's struggle to keep her enlightened love and life in the world.

SWEET SIXTEEN
2002 UK/Germany/Spain 106 min 35mm
Dir Ken Loach
A poignant and emotionally driven story of an adolescent boy's
struggle to rescue his mum from their dead-end existence. from
award-winning, British director Ken Loach.

AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES (American Independents) WINNERS

DUMMY
2002 USA 90 min 35mm
Dir Greg Pritikin
A dark comedy set in suburbia. Socially retarded Steven, played by Adrien Brody, finds his true voice through the help of a ventriloquist dummy.

THE GREY
2002 USA 88 min BetaSP (World Premiere)
Dir Shane Taylor
A dark Southern tale of a 12-year-old boy who, against the wishes of his mother, is introduced to the world of cock-fighting by his overbearing father.

DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION WINNERS

SADAA E ZAN
2002 USA 80 min Digi-Beta (SB Filmmaker)
Dir Renee Bergan
Sadaa E Zan reveals the situation for contemporary Afghan women, now that the Taliban era is over. They explain their hardships from 23 years of war, their concerns about the present state and their hopes for the future.

SPELLBOUND
2002 USA 97 min Digi-Beta
Dir Jeff Blitz
Using the spelling bee as a dramatic backdrop, SPELLBOUND peers into the lives of eight teens as they transform from ordinary kids into driven competitors. Through their comic, inspirational, heartbreaking quests, we are given a window into the American dream, reborn.