Community Action Forum & Film Screening on Offshore Oil’s Hidden Health Threat in the Santa Barbara Channel.

The Cost of Silence:

Date and Time:

Sunday, September 14, 2025

3:00PM — NGO tabling and Community Networking

4:00 - 6:00PM — Screening + Action Forum with Filmmakers and NGO Reps

6:30PM — (Reception Ticket Holders) Reception and Private Q & A with Filmmakers, Platform Founders and Local NGO's

Location:

Marjorie Luke Theatre, 721 East Cota Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93102.

No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Contact us for comped tickets.

If the ticket site is not working - you can but tickets at the door. The ticket company is having web problems. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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Flyer for a special screening and community forum about Santa Barbara's hidden offshore oil health threat called "The Cost of Silence." The event is scheduled for September 14th at 3:00 PM at the Marjorie Luke Theatre in Santa Barbara, CA. The flyer features dark clouds of smoke over water and includes logos for EarthxFilm, Sundance, Cinema for Peace, and other organizations.

Event Directions

Marjorie Luke Theatre
721 E Cota St #154, Santa Barbara, CA 93103

Arnoldi's Cafe
600 Olive St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Parking
Enter the parking lot off Cota Street to find accessible parking marked with blue signs.

From Highway 101 (Garden Street Exit) to Marjorie Luke Theatre

Parking lot off Cota Street

Walking from Marjorie Luke Theatre to Arnoldi’s Cafe

About the Event

With offshore drilling resuming off the Santa Barbara coast by Sable Offshore Corp, the Marjorie Luke Theatre’s Green Film Series will host the West Coast premiere of The Cost of Silence, nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. This searing documentary exposes how government and industry concealed the toxic aftermath of the 2010 BP oil spill that sickened tens of thousands, and how that cover-up has become the playbook for any future spills. Today, the film reveals that every coastal community, including Santa Barbara, faces a largely unknown and potentially deadly threat.

Following the screening, the filmmakers will be joined by the Environmental Defense Center and other special guests for a community forum on the ongoing Santa Barbara offshore oil fight. The event will also debut a first-of-its-kind action platform empowering Santa Barbara audiences to engage directly in the issue.

Digital map of the world showing continents with highlighted borders.

Close-up of multiple water jets spraying from a circular water fountain or fountainhead, creating ripples on the water surface.

The Cost of Silence

“Those who ignore the film’s message do so at their own peril.” – Hollywood Reporter

“Thorough and unsettling.” – The Boston Globe

“Revealing, thoroughly-researched, and enraging.” -Variety

“A mystery inside a thriller.” – Kenneth Turan, LA Times

Watch the trailer

Offshore oil rigs in the ocean with calm water and a hazy sky in the background.

The Santa Barbara Connection: Today, Santa Barbara faces a pivotal moment in its decades-long fight to protect its coastline, as Sable Offshore Corp. pushes to restart oil production from the Santa Ynez Unit — including the pipeline that ruptured in the 2015 Refugio oil spill. The restart has triggered multiple legal battles over permit transfers, safety waivers, and the lack of full environmental review.

Sable Offshore Corp’s attempt to restart the dangerous and aging oil pipeline on our coast - is part of a broader effort to revive the Santa Ynez Unit, including three offshore platforms and extensive onshore processing facilities. This restart has so far advanced without any environmental review or public input, as required by law.

While the public debate has centered on worker safety, environmental oversight, and regulatory compliance, one critical danger remains under-reported: the immediate and long-term health risks to communities and first responders from toxic oil spills and chemical response operations. These risks and consequences were systematically hidden in the aftermath of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and remain hidden from communities across the globe.

The Cost of Silence is the only film to expose the full scope of this public health threat, the coordinated effort to cover it up, and the immediate danger to all coastal communities. What followed the BP oil spill wasn’t just a failure to protect the public, it was the quiet construction of a global strategy: a system designed to shield polluters from accountability by suppressing evidence, manipulating science, and blocking victims’ access to health care and legal remedies. Now, that system is embedded in the national response plan for all spills. As the Trump administration rolls back oversight measures and reopens all U.S. waters to offshore drilling, every coastal community, including Santa Barbara, faces a dire yet invisible threat: dangerous procedures approved without research into long-term health consequences.