From the "On The Scene" Archives:

Compiled by Mark Rabinowitz

>> SBIFF Adds $10,000 Award

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival had added a new $10,000 award to the 1999 festival, and has shuffled existing categories of the festival, as well. The new award, titled "The Body Shop's Burning Vision Award," will be a cash prize provided by U.K.-based The Body Shop. The award is designed to celebrate "an emerging filmmaker," and will be given to a feature-length U.S. or World Cinema film which has no distribution.

In addition to the new award, the remaining jury awards are being reorganized into 7 categories, including The World Prism Award, which will be given to a feature-length foreign film; The Insight Award for documentary features; The Independent Voice Award for feature-length North American films without U.S. distribution; The Lumina Award, sponsored by FujiFilms, for best cinematography in a U.S. or World Cinema feature; an audience award for a U.S. or World Cinema feature film (presented by the Santa Barbara Independent), and the Best Animated Short and Bruce C. Corwin Awards for animated and live-action short films of no more than 20 minutes in length.

In order to accommodate the new categories, the deadline for submissions has been extended to Monday, December 21, 1998. For more information regarding entries, contact: Rhea Lewis/SBIFF at (805) 963-0023; 1216 State St., #710, Santa Barbara, CA, 93101 Fax: (805) 962-2524. Website: www.sbfilmfestival.com or e-mail: sbiff@west.net

>> Berlin To Fete MacLaine

Oscar winner Shirley MacLaine is set to be honored with a Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement by the Berlin International Film Festival when the next edition of that fest unspools in February, 1999. Over the course of the 49 year-old event, only ten special Golden Bears have been presented to a performing artist. Past recipients were James Stewart (1982), Sir Alec Guinness (1988), Dustin Hoffman (1989), Gregory Peck (1993), Sophia Loren (1994), Alain Delon (1995), Jack Lemmon (1996), Kim Novak (1997) and Catherine Deneuve (1998). MacLaine has starred in eight films at the festival, including a pair of Best Actress Silver Berlin Bear-winning performances in "Ask Any Girl" (1959) and "Desperate Characters" (1971).

The festival will screen a retrospective of 12 films starring Ms. MacLaine, including "The Trouble With Harry" (1955), "Some Came Running" (1958), "Ask Any Girl" (1959), "Can-Can" (1959), "The Apartment" (1960), "The Children's Hour" (1961), "Irma La Douce" (1963), "Woman Times Seven" (1967), "Sweet Charity" (1968), "Terms Of Endearment", "Madame Sousatzka" (1988) and "Postcards from the Edge" (1990). The ceremony will take place on February 18th at the ZooPalast Theater, along with a special screening of Hal Ashby's 1980 film, "Being There," in which Ms. MacLaine starred with the late Peter Sellers.