Roger Ebert Film Festival to feature 'overlooked' movies :: Music News :: Articles

Film critic Roger Ebert has announced the lineup for the 10th Annual Roger Ebert Film Festival, to take place April 23-27 at the University of Illinois.

This year’s festival, affectionately nicknamed Eberfest, will highlight films the Chicago Sun-Times critic believes were "overlooked" by reviewers and audiences alike. His selections include Ang Lee’s Hulk, Tarsem Singh’s The Cell and John Turturro’s Romance & Cigarettes.

The renowned film critic rose to stardom as one half of the thumb-warring critical duo Siskel & Ebert (with The Chicago Tribune’s Gene Siskel.) Siskel died in 1999 from complications after a surgery to remove a brain tumor, and was replaced with The Chicago Sun-Times' Richard Roeper a year later.

Ebert has also struggled with his health over the past few years, most noticeably after a series of surgeries to remove a cancerous tumor from his salivary gland left him unable to speak. Ebert wrote a letter printed in the April 2 edition of The Chicago Sun-Times stating that he would resume writing film reviews for the newspaper later this month, but would not be returning to his syndicated television show.

Tickets for Eberfest go on sale today through the University of Illinois’ Virginia Theatre box office.

Eberfest 2008 schedule:

April 23
7 p.m. - Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet

April 24
1 p.m. - Tom DiCillo’s Delirious
4 p.m. - Sally Potter’s Yes
8:30 p.m. - Joseph Greco’s Canvas and Barry Avrich’s Citizen Cohl: The Untold Story

April 25
11:30 a.m. – Jeff Nichols’ Shotgun Stories
2 p.m. – Josef von Sternberg’s Underworld
7 p.m. – Taggart Siegel’s The Real Dirt on Farmer John
10 p.m. – Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

April 26
11 a.m. – Ang Lee’s Hulk
3 p.m. – Eran Klirin’s The Band’s Visit
7:30 p.m. – Bill Forsyth’s Housekeeping
11 p.m. – Tarsem Singh’s The Cell

April 27
12 p.m. – John Turturro’s Romance & Cigarettes

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