Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Ebertfest in Champaign

By Mara Hernandez-Capili

Roger Ebert founded the "Ebertfest", which is a film festival shown in Illinois every April or during the onset of Spring season. Roger Ebert is a film aficionado who created this festival in the aim of showing to the public films that he deemed "overlooked" but great. It features films that are "overlooked" by viewers but are very meaningful and great films to watch. Ebert personally handpicks the films that are to be shown in his festival.

On a quick history, Ebertfest was formerly called as Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival. It is organized by the College of Communication in the University of Illinois. It will be held at the nostalgic and famous Virginia Theatre of Champaign. Every year, 12 to 14 films are being shown at the festival. Ebert really makes it a point to offer the public very good and quality "overlooked" films through his prestigious festival. It is deemed to be a place where one can see "unheard of" quality films.

The festival sees to it that it shows one silent film together with a live orchestral accompaniment every year. An example of a silent film that the festival has shown is the famous horror flick: "Nosferatu". The festival also shows musical films because they are also "overlooked" according to Ebert. The Ebertfest really gave the "overlooked" films much exposure and mileage.

Before the start of the film festival, Ebert is known to give speeches and introductory remarks about each film. He enthusiastically gives everyone a preview and slight synopsis of each story without going into the full details to still contain the mystery and curiousness of the audience. It is safe to say that Roger Ebert is a film aficionado himself for having to come up with this kind of festival each year.

If you're on a vacation in Illinois, don't forget to catch a peek of the Ebertfest and see what "overlooked" films you missed in your life!

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