Featuring a documentary they created celebrating the City College’s 100-year anniversary, two of its students participated in the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Friday, Feb. 5.

Students William Conlin and Simon Freeman wrote, directed, produced and edited the documentary “SBCC @ 100,” which commemorates the college’s anniversary by sharing its history and growth into becoming the college we all know today.

“It starts right at the beginning… in 1909 and goes up until the present,” Conlin said. “We talk about how education developed here in California and how specifically this school developed.”

The documentary was featured as part of the festival on Friday, Feb. 5 at the Victoria Hall, and was also screened on Monday Feb. 8 at the Metro 4 theatre.

The piece begins with bright, colorful footage of City College’s beachfront campus and goes on to discuss the college’s beginnings as a junior college, where it moved in location from Santa Barbara High School to Santa Barbara Street and the Riviera, until it finally landed on what would be its official campus – the Mesa.

“We had to rely very heavily on the archival material,” Conlin said, explaining the black and white images of City College’s beginnings and of the benefactors also shown in the piece.

“Working on the project we got to meet a lot of people who really shaped this campus in the last 50 years.”

Some of the benefactors featured in the documentary are Leatrice Luria, the wife of Eli Luria who the Luria Library is named after and Dr. Peter MacDougall, a former City College president from 1981 to 2002 and current college president Dr. Andreea Serban. According to the documentary Serban made City College the third community college in California’s history to hire a female president.

In the documentary, Serban said serving as City College’s president “is the greatest job that one can have.”

Nico Maestu, City College’s Film and Television Department Chair, said it’s “fantastic” that the students’ film was featured in the festival, citing Conlin’s active participation in the college’s film studies program and his position as president of the film reviews club.

“He has done a lot of hard work, taken a lot of classes,” Maestu said. “It’ll be a great experience for him.”

Freeman traveled from his home in England to Santa Barbara during the week of the festival to participate in the festivities and see his and Conlin’s documentary featured.

And as for Conlin?

“I’m just excited for everyone to see it,” he said.

To view the documentary online CLICK HERE