CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The rock opera "Pink Floyd: The Wall" and the Vietnam War epic "Apolcalypse Now" are the headliners at the 12th annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival, also known as "Ebertfest," April 21-25 in Champaign-Urbana.
"The Wall," in 70mm, will open the festival. "Apocalypse Now Redux," a longer 2001 re-edit and reprint of the 1979 original, will be the second-evening feature. Ebert calls the first film "the best of all serious films devoted to rock" and the second "one of the great films of all time."
Less well known on this year's schedule is "Synecdoche, New York," starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. Ebert calls it the best film of the past decade. Its writer-director, Charlie Kaufman, "generally considered the most creative screenwriter of his generation," according to Ebert, will be a guest on stage after the screening.
Many of the other 10 films on the schedule tell personal stories, but in different ways and in very different settings.
An Oscar-winner for best foreign language film follows an out-of-work Japanese classical musician who finds himself in the ceremonial preparation of corpses. Another film, directed by an Arkansas-born Korean-American, follows the journey of two boys in post-genocide Rwanda.
A surrealistic Swedish film follows sad lives through 50 vignettes.
Two documentaries chronicle the lives of minor celebrities from Midwestern cities - one the story of a colorful Chicagoan, and former University of Illinois student, who now performs from Chicago River bridges for passing tour boats. The other follows a Milwaukee husband-and-wife singing duo, named "Lightning & Thunder." ("Thunder" will perform after the Sunday afternoon screening.)
Among the other films are stories of a Skid Row poet, of a couple's falling fortunes in opulent Beverly Hills, of a female trucker forced to look after her estranged son, and of a pair of teenage sisters dealing with romance and eccentric family life in a rundown English castle (in the free Saturday family matinee).
By tradition, the festival again will feature a silent film, this time from Russia, and the three-man Alloy Orchestra, of Cambridge, Mass., will return to accompany it.
The 13 screenings will take place at the 1,500-seat Virginia Theater, a 1920s-era Champaign movie palace, with other events at the University of Illinois. The festival is an event of the College of Media at Illinois. Partial support comes from a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and from the Champaign County Anti-Stigma Alliance.
Ebert is a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for the Chicago Sun-Times and co-hosted "Ebert & Roeper," a weekly televised movie-review program, until 2006. He also is a 1964 Illinois journalism graduate and adjunct journalism professor.
Ebert selects films for the festival that he feels have been overlooked in some way, either by critics, distributors or audiences, or because they come from overlooked genres or formats, such as documentaries. (The festival previously was titled "Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival," but was renamed in 2008.)
Guests connected with the selected films are invited to attend, and many appear on stage for informal Q-and-A sessions after the screenings.
As in recent festivals, Ebert's wife, Chaz, will act as the emcee. Ebert, unable to speak as a result of throat cancer and related surgery over recent years, says he plans to play a role through his "computer voice."
This year's schedule of films, with the current lineup of guests (Ebert's comments are from the festival program or past reviews):
Wednesday, April 21
7 p.m. - "Pink Floyd: The Wall" (1982), "a surrealistic trip through the memory and hallucinations of an overdosing rock star ... disquieting and depressing and very good," according to Ebert. The 70mm print being shown at the festival, on loan from the British Film Institute, is the only one surviving.
10 p.m. - "You, the Living" (2007), a "hypnotic" film, according to Ebert, about "sad people (who) lead sad lives." Directed by Roy Andersson, one of Europe's most successful directors of TV commercials, the Swedish film is "in some ways a comedy, with a twist of the knife." Actress Jessika Lundberg will be a guest, along with assistant director Johan Carlsson, also the author of a book about Andersson.
Thursday, April 22
Noon - "Munyurangabo" (2007), a journey with two adolescent boys through Rwanda that is "in every frame a beautiful and powerful film - a masterpiece," according to Ebert. It was shot on location in only two weeks, using only local actors. Director Lee Isaac Chung, writer Samuel Gray Anderson and co-producer Jenny Lund will be guests.
3 p.m. - "The New Age" (1994), an "eerily relevant" story, according to Ebert, about a well-off Beverly Hills couple, played by Peter Weller and Judy Davis, facing financial ruin and "caught up in the search for quick spiritual fixes." Writer-director Michael Tolkin, who also wrote the screenplay for "The Player," will be a guest.
8 p.m. - "Apocalypse Now Redux" (2001), a film directed by Francis Ford Coppola that is "a mirror reflecting our feelings about the war in Vietnam, in all their complexity and sadness," according to Ebert. The update, 49 minutes longer than the 1979 original, is "a new rendition of the movie from scratch," according to Coppola, as quoted by Ebert. Oscar-winner Walter Murch, the movie's sound and film editor, will be a guest.
Friday, April 23
1 p.m. - "Departures" (2008), an "uncommonly absorbing" film, according to Ebert, about an unemployed cellist who apprentices in the trade of encoffinment, preparing corpses and carrying out elaborate ceremonies before the families of the deceased. The film won the 2009 Oscar for best foreign language film. Director Yojiro Takita will be a guest.
4 p.m. - "Man With a Movie Camera" (1929), an influential avant-garde Russian silent film that "assembles itself in plain view," according to Ebert, showing not only the movie itself, but the process of the movie being made. The Alloy Orchestra will accompany.
8 p.m. - "Synecdoche, New York" (2008), a film about a theater director struggling with both his work and with the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play. Ebert calls it a "masterpiece," but also says it has frustrated fellow critics. The writer-director Charlie Kaufman, who also wrote "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation," will be a guest.
Saturday, April 24
11 a.m. - "I Capture the Castle" (2003), the free family matinee, a film about "a real family living in a real castle with real problems," according to Ebert. Based on the novel by Dodie Smith, it should appeal especially to adolescents, though it does carry an R rating, which Ebert thinks is unjustified.
2 p.m. - "Vincent: A Life in Color" (2008), a documentary about Vincent P. Falk, a nearly blind computer programmer who can be seen regularly in Chicago outside the windows of local news broadcasts and on bridges waving to tour boats, always in colorful coats. Both Falk and the director, Jennifer Burns, will be guests.
4:30 p.m. - "Trucker" (2008), a film about a fiercely independent female trucker who is suddenly called on to look after the son she left soon after birth. The performance of Michelle Monaghan in the title role was worthy of an Oscar nomination, Ebert says. Monaghan and writer-director James Mottern will be guests.
9 p.m. - "Barfly" (1987), a film about a drifter and Skid Row poet, based on a screenplay by Charles Bukowski, who for years lived the life he describes. Starring Mickey Rourke, along with Faye Dunaway, it's "a grimy comedy about what it might be like to spend a couple of days in (the title character's) skin," according to Ebert. Director Barbet Schroeder will be a guest.
Sunday, April 25
Noon - "Song Sung Blue" (2008), a documentary about the Milwaukee singing duo of Mike and Claire Sardina, otherwise known as "Lightning & Thunder," who built their act around tributes to Neil Diamond and Patsy Cline. Shot over eight years, the film was named best documentary at numerous film festivals during 2008. Director Greg Kohs will be a guest, along with "Thunder," Claire Sardina, who will perform - and is "dynamite," according to Ebert.
Other festival events, including panel discussions held on the U. of I. campus, will be announced soon. Updates will be posted on the festival Web site.
Also available on the Web site, for the first time this year, will be live streaming of the panel discussions and the post-film Q-and-A sessions at the Virginia Theater.
Tickets for individual films will go on sale April 5 through the theater box office; phone 217-356-9063; fax: 217-356-5729. The price will be $12 each for regular admission and $10 each for students and senior citizens. Sales will be limited to four per person.
The 1,000 festival passes, covering all festival screenings, went on sale in November and sold out.
Even if tickets for individual films are sold out, entrance can usually be obtained by waiting in a rush line that forms outside the theater prior to each screening.
Those seeking additional information and updates on films, guests and festival events should contact Mary Susan Britt, at 217-244-0552 or marsue@illinois.edu, or festival director Nate Kohn, at 706-542-4972 or nate.kohn@gmail.com.