I am thrilled to welcome you to the 20th annual Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, a special event in partnership with the University of Illinois College of Media, the greater Champaign-Urbana community, and movie lovers everywhere. Little did we think, back in 1999, that our experiment in reinventing the film festival—to make a festival that celebrated overlooked films, formats and genres, and the women and men who made those films—would become a landmark annual event in the life of our community and contribute to the renovation of the remarkable Virginia Theater, our home from the very beginning.
In selecting the films for this year, Chaz Ebert and I looked to women filmmakers for our inspiration. Fully half of our films are either directed or co-directed by women, and several others have women in powerful producing roles. Films directed or co-directed by women include “13th,” directed by Ava DuVernay, “Belle,” directed by Amma Asante, and “American Splendor,” directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. And women producers include Lynda Obst and Emma Thomas (“Interstellar”) and Ruth Ann Harnisch and Danielle Renfrew Behrens (“Columbus”).
Our opening night film is “The Fugitive,” directed by University of Illinois alumnus Andrew Davis. Our Saturday night film is the classic “The Big Lebowski.” Our guest will be the Hollywood legend Jeff Dowd. And of course The Alloy Orchestra will be back, this year with “A Page of Madness,” the classic Japanese silent film.
We would like to thank our sponsors, volunteers, festival pass holders, and individual ticket holders for their welcome participation in this endeavor. We look forward to your unwavering support as our festival continues to blossom each spring in central Illinois. We especially want to thank the University of Illinois for their loyal support year after year.
This festival is Roger Ebert’s gift to his hometown, and for that we thank him and his wife Chaz. They continue to be a remarkable team, and it is an honor to work with them.