Carsey-Wolf Center at UCSB

THIS FRIDAY! Join us on June 12 at 7:00 PM for our 2026 GreenScreen student film premiere, showcasing the following student-produced films focused on eco-consciousness: Unlikely Cast, Smog Valley, and The Wave Home. The event will be followed by a reception in the Michael Douglas Lobby. Click the link in our bio for more details!

UNLIKELY CAST: They come to the river to take – or so the story often goes. But the fly fishermen of Santa Barbara’s Fly Fishers International(SBFFI) have spent years giving everything back. They’re fighting to bring the Southern California Steelhead back from the brink, and showing that the most unlikely heroes can light the way for local conservation movements everywhere.

SMOG VALLEY: Smog Valley is an environmental justice documentary highlighting the disproportionate burden of air pollution on marginalized communities within Kern County. It shares the stories, activism, and experience of different residents from the Central Valley. Our film shows a community fueled by love and resilience, united among all people.

THE WAVE HOME: Focused on the Channel Islands Marine Wildlife Institute (CIMWI), The Wave Home dives deeper into the organization’s seal/sea lion rescue and rehabilitation efforts. By exploring the community-driven care for marine mammals, we see why people should care about maintaining the health of our local oceans.



UCSB Film and Media Studies

STUDENT FILM PREMIERE! Join us this Friday, June 12 at 7:00 PM for a premiere of student films from our 2026 GreenScreen program, showcasing the following student-produced films focused on eco-consciousness: Unlikely Cast, Smog Valley, and The Wave Home.

GreenScreen is a hands-on, project-based environmental media production program where students work in teams to leverage their collective production skills and environmental knowledge. The goal of the program is not only to increase awareness about the environment, but to expand the ways that these issues are represented and communicated

The event will be followed by a reception in the Michael Douglas Lobby. Click here for more details: https://www.carseywolf.ucsb.edu/pollock-events/greenscreen-2026-student-film-premiere/

THIS SATURDAY at 2PM! The Carsey-Wolf Center is delighted to present a special theatrical screening of the DIRECTOR’S CUT of CINEMA PARADISO, featuring a critical and historical introduction by Ross Melnick (Interim Dick Wolf Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center).

In Cinema Paradiso (1988), filmmaker Salvatore “Totò” Di Vita (Jacques Perrin) returns to his small Sicilian community of Giancaldo to attend the funeral of Alfredo (Philipe Noiret), the town’s longtime film projectionist, who had served as Salvatore’s mentor during his childhood. Through a series of flashbacks, the film revisits the local cinema where a young Salvatore first discovered the power of movies and formed a deep bond with Alfredo.

The Carsey-Wolf Center is excited to bring director Giuseppe Tornatore’s rarely-screened 2002 director’s cut of Cinema Paradiso to the Po***ck Theater. In this more complex version of the film, Salvatore returns to Giancaldo to discover what he left behind, including a secret that was excised from the theatrical version of the film. The New York Times argued that the director’s cut is “more romantic, more emotional and ultimately more satisfying than the teary-eyed original. By adding 48 minutes to that two-hour release, and bringing back a character that had been deleted from it, the director’s cut sabotages the earlier version’s message, a variation of the old admonition that you can’t go home again.” An intimate coming-of-age story, a brooding rumination on the complexity of adulthood and adult decisions, and a touching reflection on cinema’s broader cultural role, Cinema Paradiso is one of the medium’s most heartfelt tributes to the collective experience of moviegoing.

Click the link in our bio for more details and to reserve tickets!

Tomorrow! The Carsey-Wolf Center is proud to support the Spring 2026 public exhibition of LIVE SIGNAL, a special event at Wireframe Studio (1410 Music Building, UCSB) on Wednesday, June 3 from 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM as part of the FAMST 109: Media 4 Nonprofits class. Five student teams are presenting this Wednesday — interactive film, live performance, a Chumash land walkthrough, a female health data installation, and live set on AI. Each piece was built with a real nonprofit partner over the quarter.

This event is free and open to all. Click the link in our bio for more details.

THIS SATURDAY! The Carsey-Wolf Center is delighted to welcome the legendary documentary filmmaker Gordon Quinn to the Po***ck Theater for a discussion of his lifelong commitment to the direct cinema movement. Emerging between the late 1950s and early 1960s, direct cinema marked a major turning point in the history of American documentary filmmaking. These filmmakers developed an observational mode of filmmaking by abandoning the use of traditional storytelling devices such as written scripts, interviews, and voiceover narration; it is often described as “a fly-on-the-wall” style. Quinn joined this revolutionary film movement in 1966 when he cofounded Kartemquin Films, an independent film collective, with Stan Karter and Gerald Temaner. Still operating today under Quinn’s leadership, Kartemquin Films has produced a wide range of award-winning documentaries, including Steve James’s Hoop Dreams (1994) and Brent Huffman’s Saving Mes Aynak (2014).

This event will open with a screening of Richard Leacock and Joyce Chopra’s short documentary Happy Mother’s Day (1963), which centers on the family of the first surviving quintuplets born in the US. Quinn first encountered this film when he was an undergraduate student, and it inspired him to become a documentary filmmaker. Next, we will screen Quinn’s first film Home for Life (1966), which depicts the experiences of two elderly people in their first month at a home for the aged. One is a woman whose struggle to remain useful in her son and daughter-in-law’s home is no longer appreciated. The other is a widower without a family, who suddenly realizes he can no longer take care of himself. The film offers an unblinking look at the feelings of the two new residents in their encounters with other residents, medical staff, social workers, psychiatrists and family. Home for Life was restored in 2007 thanks to a National Film Preservation Foundation grant.

Filmmaker Gordon Quinn will join moderator Naoki Yamamoto (Film and Media Studies, UCSB) for a post-screening discussion of these two films, the direct cinema movement, and Quinn’s own career.

Click the link in our bio for more details and to reserve tickets!

NEXT MONTH! On June 6 at 2:00 PM, the Carsey-Wolf Center will host a special theatrical screening of the Director’s Cut of CINEMA PARADISO, featuring a critical and historical introduction by Ross Melnick (Interim Dick Wolf Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center), who will discuss the film’s relationship to our yearlong programming series Connectivity. A reception in the Michael Douglas Lobby will follow the screening.

In Cinema Paradiso (1988), filmmaker Salvatore “Totò” Di Vita (Jacques Perrin) returns to his small Sicilian community of Giancaldo to attend the funeral of Alfredo (Philipe Noiret), the town’s longtime film projectionist, who had served as Salvatore’s mentor during his childhood. Through a series of flashbacks, the film revisits the local cinema where a young Salvatore first discovered the power of movies and formed a deep bond with Alfredo.

The Carsey-Wolf Center is excited to bring director Giuseppe Tornatore’s rarely-screened 2002 director’s cut of Cinema Paradiso to the Po***ck Theater. In this more complex version of the film, Salvatore returns to Giancaldo to discover what he left behind, including a secret that was excised from the theatrical version of the film. The New York Times argued that the director’s cut is “more romantic, more emotional and ultimately more satisfying than the teary-eyed original. By adding 48 minutes to that two-hour release, and bringing back a character that had been deleted from it, the director’s cut sabotages the earlier version’s message, a variation of the old admonition that you can’t go home again.” An intimate coming-of-age story, a brooding rumination on the complexity of adulthood and adult decisions, and a touching reflection on cinema’s broader cultural role, Cinema Paradiso is one of the medium’s most heartfelt tributes to the collective experience of moviegoing.

Click here for more details and to reserve tickets: https://www.carseywolf.ucsb.edu/pollock-events/connectivity-cinema-paradiso/

THURSDAY! On May 21 at 7:00 PM, the filmmaker COURTNEY STEPHENS will join moderator Joshua Baldelomar (Film and Media Studies, UCSB) for a screening and discussion of JOHN LILLY AND THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE.

John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office (2025) uncovers the story of daring experimenter Dr. John C. Lilly, a scientist who dedicated his life to radical self-investigation and unlocking the mysteries of consciousness and communication. Through extensive archival research—including historical footage, personal writings, interviews, and home movies—the film traces Lilly’s innovative career, from his groundbreaking neurobiological research of cetaceans (dolphins and whales) to the more speculative realms of mysticism and countercultural experimentation. As his work intersected with broader social shifts during the Cold War and the drug-infused counterculture, Lilly pursued radical experiments in sensory deprivation and dolphin communication, while also using psychedelic substances such as L*D, ketamine, and psilocybin to chart new pathways to human and animal consciousness. He garnered fame as both a serious researcher and a pop culture curiosity, inspiring films like The Day of the Dolphin and Altered States. Directors Michael Almereyda and Courtney Stephens, along with narrator Chloë Sevigny, explore the pioneering and often controversial career of a man who dove into the psychonautical unknown.

Click the link in our bio for more details and to reserve tickets!