Carsey-Wolf Center at UC Santa Barbara 
CWC Global: Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams
- Saturday, April 19, 2025 / 2:00 PM - 4:30 PM (PDT)
- Pollock Theater
- Screening Format: TBA (119 minutes)
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Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Akira Terao, Mitsuko Baisho, Toshie Negishi, Mieko Harada, Chishu Ryu, Martin Scorsese
Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams brings to life eight dreamlike vignettes inspired by the director’s own nighttime visions in this deeply personal and visually striking anthology film. Blending imagination with Japanese folklore, each segment explores themes of memory, nature, mortality, war, and the human experience: a young boy encounters a secret wedding of foxes in a forest; a soldier confronts the ghosts of his fallen comrades; an aging artist steps into the sumptuously realized world of Vincent Van Gogh, played by director Martin Scorsese; a small group witnesses an apocalyptic scene of a world ravaged by nuclear disaster. A late-career masterpiece from one of cinema’s most celebrated filmmakers, Dreams is a meditative reflection on life, spirituality, and humanity’s connection to the natural world.
This event is presented in conjunction with the UCSB Reads program. The program’s 2025 selection is The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay. For tickets to attend Gay’s free public lecture at Campbell Hall on Thursday, May 8 at 7:30 PM, please visit this page.
This screening will be accompanied by a critical and historical introduction by Carsey-Wolf Center Assistant Director Miguel Penabella, including a brief discussion of the film’s connection to the key themes and ideas in The Book of Delights.
This event is free but a reservation is recommended in order to guarantee a seat.
Biographies
Miguel Penabella (Carsey-Wolf Center, UCSB)
Miguel Penabella is Assistant Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center and a PhD candidate in Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research examines conspiracy, spectrality, and melancholia as theoretical frameworks for examining historical revisionism in the Philippines and the links between former presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Rodrigo Duterte. He is also interested in theorizations of cinematic temporality and slowness. He is a former coordinating editor of Media Fields Journal.
This event is sponsored by the Carsey-Wolf Center and the James Hayman (’75) fund for CWC Classics, and presented in conjunction with the 2025 UCSB Reads Program.
CWC Global
Media are global by nature; they express culture just as much as they transcend borders. The CWC Global series is dedicated to showcasing media from around the world. This series features screenings and events that place UCSB in conversation with international media makers and global contexts across our deeply connected world.