Just north of Hollywood

SINCE he was tapped to lead the Santa Barbara International Film Festival four years ago, Roger Durling has had a knack for picking award winners.

In his first year on the job as executive director, he scored the biggest coup in the festival’s history when he brought in Peter Jackson and Charlize Theron, and last year, he equaled that feat when he landed George Clooney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. All four took home the Oscar a few weeks after appearing at the festival.

This year -- the film festival’s 22nd -- Durling is hoping to score a hat trick as all three of the festival’s actor honorees, Will Smith (“The Pursuit of Happyness”), Helen Mirren (“The Queen”) and Forest Whitaker (“The Last King of Scotland”) received Academy Award nominations on Tuesday.

“I was always the odd kid growing up that was just obsessed with the Oscars and guessing early on who the front-runners and nominees would be,” says the 43-year-old Durling. “I’m a freak in that I always know who’s going to win.”

All told, 33 Academy Award nominees will be attending the 11-day festival, which opens tonight, including five on the screenwriters’ panel. And among the A-list actors who are scheduled to appear at various award ceremonies, screenings and panels are Sacha Baron Cohen, Tom Cruise, Sandra Bullock and Heather Graham.

In addition to the ever-increasing glitz and glam, this year’s festival will screen more than 200 films, including 28 world premieres and 18 U.S. premieres. The films hail from 40 different countries, and Durling is quick to note that more than a third of the films are Latino and come from as far away as Mexico, Cuba, Peru and Spain.

“I think diversity is really important -- I like to see everything and I like to have a lot of choices,” says Durling, who was born and raised in Panama. “Another thing that was important to me was that the festival really reflect the community we’re in, which is 35% Latino.”

Also at the top of Durling’s agenda this year is a continuing focus on education. With the help of a grant, more than 3,000 local students will be attending the festival, where they will receive study guides and have the opportunity to rub elbows with filmmakers like editor Richard Harris, who won an Academy Award for “Titanic.”

With this year’s festival, Durling is also beginning a tradition of inviting a guest director, who will showcase a selection of his or her work. To kick things off, Directors Guild of America President Michael Apted will be screening “49 Up” (2005), the latest installment in his acclaimed documentary series that follows a group of schoolchildren as they grow up and are now entering middle age; “Thunderheart” (1992), a crime-mystery thriller set on a Sioux Indian reservation in the Badlands of South Dakota; and the soon-to-be-released “Amazing Grace,” which is a drama-thriller based on the true story of William Wilberforce, a leader of the British abolition movement.

Having “Amazing Grace” selected as the festival’s centerpiece film and being named the festival’s first guest director “is a great honor because it is an important festival,” says the Los Angeles-based Apted. “It’s also nice in that the festival is close to home so my family can come up and support me.”

The festival’s proximity to Los Angeles -- about an hour and a half drive -- is also a big draw for independent filmmakers like Michael Schroeder, whose “Man in the Chair,” which stars Christopher Plummer as a mentor to an aspiring but troubled high school filmmaker, will be making its world premiere at the festival.

“The festival being so close to Los Angeles gives your picture a higher profile with the Hollywood community,” says Schroeder, who hopes the venue will also help him land a domestic film deal. “Also, a lot of major players in this business live in Santa Barbara and Montecito, so you get even more distributors coming.”

For Brooklyn-based Sue Kramer, the film festival represents a coming home of sorts. The first-time director attended film school at UCLA in the 1990s before starting her film career in Southern California.

She’s coming back with a new film in tow, “Gray Matters,” which stars Graham and Thomas Cavanagh as a brother and sister who fall in love with the same woman.

Though she’s honored that her film was chosen to close the festival, Kramer is also excited about having her film shown in the historic 2,000-seat Arlington Theatre.

“To be able to screen the film in front of 2,000 people is really something else -- not many theaters can hold 2,000 people for a movie,” she says. “It’s going to be an out-of-body experience, and since the movie is a romantic comedy, hopefully I’ll be hearing a lot of laughs.”

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Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Selected screenings:

* “Factory Girl”: Director George Hickenlooper’s look at the rise and fall of Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick, played by Sienna Miller.

8 tonight, Arlington Theatre, 1317 State St.

* “Man in the Chair”: A drama by Michael Schroeder and starring Christopher Plummer as a mentor to an aspiring but troubled high school filmmaker. 7:15 p.m. Saturday, 1:30 p.m. Sunday,

11:45 a.m. Wednesday, Metro 4, 618 State St.

* “Amazing Grace”: Director Michael Apted discusses his new drama, which is also the festival’s centerpiece film. 8 p.m. Wednesday, Arlington Theatre.

* “Gray Matters”: Sue Kramer’s romantic comedy starring Heather Graham and Thomas Cavanagh as a brother and sister who fall in love with the same woman. It’s the festival’s closing-night film. 8 p.m. Feb. 4, Arlington Theatre.

Among the panel discussions:

* “It Starts With the Script”: Panel discussion with eight feature film screenwriters, including Academy Award nominees Michael Arndt, Guillermo Arriaga and Peter Morgan. 2 p.m. Saturday, Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido St.

When: The festival begins tonight and runs through Feb. 4.

Price: $12, general screening tickets. $29 to $44, panels. $13 to $79, additional events.

Info: (805) 963-0761, www.sbfilmfestival.org