At the July 25th, 2019 Buellton City Council meeting, CCFS Board President, and Buellton resident, Raiza Giorgi, presented to the Council a request for a grant. Because CCFS' nonprofit status came in after their initial deadline for grants for 2019, the Council agreed to hear the presentation as requested by CCFS Executive Director Daniel Lahr on June 27th, 2019. 

The Council was told about the CCFS' plans for the Central Coast Film Society, including family screenings, student seminars/lectures and even the Central Coast Film Festival, coming in October of 2020 to the City of Buellton. The request was for the grant was for $5,750 for audio and visual equipment to help CCFS be able to expand their screening program in a wider variety of venue locations. 

In a surprise direction, it was with unanimous consent of the council to "bump it up to $6,000 to give them some wiggle room," said Councilman David King. He went on to add, "Buellton will benefit from it... I think it's public dollars well spent." Mayor Holly Sierra said, "We have had a request from our community to bring arts and culture to Buellton... and I'm for it too." 

"We are so thrilled and honored to receive this grant from the City of Buellton." says Daniel Lahr, CCFS Executive Director & Founder. "The Council's vote of confidence in our organization and programs is incredibly heart warming and it will only help us continue to grow. We now shoulder the responsibility of delivering on this opportunity and to do the best events we can to further our mission of celebrating cinema on the Central Coast."

CCFS has held numerous screenings in the recent past in Buellton, including several at the local Parks Plaza Theater. This location will also be a primary location for the upcoming Central Coast Film Festival. "The entire Santa Ynez Valley community will benefit from this and we can't wait to put on more screenings in Buellton soon!" Lahr said.

It was confirmed today by multiple sources, including Variety, that Ewan McGregor is set to reprise his role as the Jedi Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, on Disney's upcoming streaming service, Disney+. McGregor first played the role in the long anticipated, long since debated prequel trilogy, starting with Star Wars: Episode I - A Phantom Menace in 1999. It was long sense rumored and whispered that McGregor was attained by Disney to do the role after appearing in recent live-action films, Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Christopher Robin (2018). 

Many Star Wars fans were left divided with the reception of the "Prequel Trilogy," but many will say the best aspect of them were Ewan McGregor's take on a younger Sir Alec Guinness, who originated the role in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Other favorite characters have seen returns in various ways, including Darth Maul, who was seen briefly in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).

McGregor also lent his voice, uncredited, to Star Wars: Episode IV - The Force Awakens (2015) which you can hear during Rey's "force-back" after touching Anakin and Luke's lightsaber. The character of Obi-Wan Kenobi lives past the films, appearing in animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels. The actor giving his voice in the animated series is Santa Barbara native, James Arnold Taylor. 

There is no word or confirmation from Disney on the size and scope of the untitled Obi-Wan Kenobi series coming to Disney+. The show will be joining at least two other live-action Star Wars series that will be on the service, including Jon Favreau's The Mandalorian and another untitled series following Diego Luna's Cassian Andor and Alan Tudyk's K-2SO characters from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016).  

You can catch the Disney+ service starting this November to see Ewan McGregor back in action again. If you want to see Obi-Wan Kenobi back on the silver screen, then you don't have to wait that long. Central Coast Film Society is showing Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope on Saturday, August 24th at the Clark Center for the Performing Arts in Arroyo Grande, California, with special guest Ken Napzok. Tickets are still on sale and this is sure to be one of the largest Star Wars celebrations on the Central Coast! Get your tickets here!

Today marks a milestone for the Central Coast Film Society. It is the one year anniversary of our bylaws adoption and the official formation of our Board of Directors. These individuals have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to help craft and shape this organization. Steering this organization on the mission as stated below: ​

One thing you may have noticed in the "by doing so" section, there is something listed as the "Central Coast Film Festival." Even a year ago, official discussions were held about this event and now, we are ready to share the dates and location! Drum roll...

So now we've got a little more than a year to go until the biggest event yet!!

​We are all beyond thrilled to begin the task of putting on a full fledged film festival, and as we've been preparing for the past year, we still know what a daunting task we have before the curtain rises on the inaugural Central Coast Film Festival in 2020. We are also beyond excited about the slate of CCFS Events that will be coming out before we even get to the Central Coast Film Festival. Many of those details will be coming soon!

Many of the festival's details, rules and call for entries will be revealed later this summer. But of course, it will be a place for filmmakers (local, professional and students) to come together and celebrate cinema together! 

Your support is absolutely what is helping us get to this point. In less than a year on Facebook, we are now at more than 1,300 followers. We have also held 5 screenings, two Q&As, mentorships and an Oscar party! All of the memberships, ticket prices and donations help us in so many ways. So please continue to give to help our dream reach so many more! Donating is easy and can be done by clicking at the bottom of this page, or on Facebook. Or even consider purchasing a membership or becoming a company sponsor! 

We all can get behind celebrating cinema. 

Hello, everyone! 

I'm Daniel Lahr and I'm the Executive Director and Founder of the Central Coast Film Society. We're going to begin having a regular blog going on here where I'll be sharing my feelings on local events, news and movie events (ie. movie reviews)! 

I hope you all enjoy and get to know us a little bit better as we continue to grow. This will also be a place where I'll share all of my recaps of events we have, give special thanks to people who help us out along the way, and maybe share some news here first with you! 

That being said, the summer blockbuster movie season is just getting started this week with the arrival of Avengers: Endgame. I'll be seeing it on Thursday night and I couldn't be more excited! So I will follow up with our first review. That being said... there's many, many more movies coming out this year. What would you like to see me review?