Phyllis de Picciotto, who played such a central role 40 years ago in giving birth to what’s become the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, died this Monday while under the care of Serenity House.
After stepping away from the Film Festival, de Picciotto would later team up with her husband, former District Attorney Stan Roden, to begin making short social-justice-themed documentaries, under the rubric of baba2films.
Roden said of his wife, “Her passage paralleled how she lived her life … strong … trailblazing … stubborn, smart, intuitive, loving, and did I say stubborn? And oh so bold to the end.”
Before moving to Santa Barbara in 1983, de Picciotto helped pioneer a workshop for preschoolers at Temple Israel of Hollywood. There she would meet Bruce Corwin, head honcho of Metropolitan Theatres. While in Los Angeles, she also programmed art house movies at the Laemmle Theater, hosting Q&As with the directors afterward. In Santa Barbara, she would collaborate with Corwin to replicate this format at the Riviera Theatre. Out of that relationship sprang the seeds for the film festival.
While de Picciotto was one of many who helped launch that enterprise, she was among the most visible; she was the one who approached the City Council for its first infusion of grant funding to help get the program off the ground. She also served on the Grand Jury, the Santa Barbara Women’s Political Committee, the Community Arts Workshop, and the City Arts Advisory Committee.
