Roger Ebert News

 The 22nd Annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival, co-founded and hosted by Chaz Ebert and also known as 'Ebertfest”, announced today that this year's event has been cancelled due to the situation with the coronavirus (COVID-19) and has been rescheduled for April 14-17, 2021, and will take place at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, IL.  The festival was informed by the University of Illinois that all University sponsored events with more than 50 attendees will be suspended indefinitely, effective Friday, March 13.

 The 22nd Annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival, co-founded and hosted by Chaz Ebert and also known as 'Ebertfest”, announced today Ari Aster's HEREDITARY will be joining this year's lineup.

Today, Clem Snide, the moniker of Eef Barzelay, shares 'Don't Bring No Ladder,' the new single from his first album in five years, Forever Just Beyond, out on March 27 via Ramseur Records/Thirty Tigers. Barzelay has also added new tour dates where the band will be joined by Forever Just Beyond producer Scott Avett.

Raue Center For The Arts has announced the return of one of the world's great blues harmonica masters, writer of unusual songs, composer and pioneer of music that takes audiences to places they have never been before! Blues, jazz and classical musical will mingle with Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues featuring two-time Grammy Award-winning saxophone icon, Ernie Watts, and bodacious vocal diva, Lynne Jordan, at 8 p.m. on February 29, 2020.

Clem Snide will release their new album Forever Just Beyond on March 27 via Ramseur Records/Thirty Tigers. Produced by Scott Avett, Eef Barzelay's stunning new album under the Clem Snide moniker may just be the most miraculous of them all.

San Francisco Ballet has announced Cathy Marston's next creation for the Company: Mrs. Robinson, inspired by the 1960s American novella and film The Graduate and re-told from the perspective of Mrs. Robinson, one of America's most notorious seductresses. Mrs. Robinson is Marston's second work for the Company; her ballet Snowblind, based on Edith Wharton's novella Edith Frome, premiered to critical acclaim at the Company's 2018 Unbound: A Festival of New Works, with repeat performances in the 2019 Repertory Season and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. Mrs. Robinson will premiere March 24, 2020 at the War Memorial Opera House on Program 05: Ballet Accelerator, which also includes Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson's 7 For Eight and David Dawson's Anima Animus. Performances will run through April 4, 2020.

A couple weeks ago, Carrie Fisher shut off the lights at a Rise of Skywalker press conference. Someone asked about how Princess Leia would be integrated into the new movie, and JJ Abrams said something about loving Carrie Fisher and something else about lights, and then there were no more lights. It was a spectral technical malfunction, a prank from beyond the grave, something wholly natural in its unnaturalness. Carrie Fisher, who died three years ago on Friday, was indisputably in the room.

Sundance Institute invites champions of independent storytelling to attend An Artist at the Table Presented by IMDbPro, Sundance Institute's annual fundraising event hosted on the first night of the Sundance Film Festival, Thursday, January 23, 2020, in Park City, Utah. During the celebratory event, Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, will be honored with the Vanguard Award for Philanthropy. Proceeds from the evening will advance Sundance Institute's mission and programs that discover, support and amplify risk-taking and exciting independent film, media and theatre artists.  In addition to Presenting Sponsor IMDbPro, the event is supported by Lead Sponsor the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation.

Sundance Institute invites champions of independent storytelling to attend An Artist at the Table Presented by IMDbPro, Sundance Institute's annual fundraising event hosted on the first night of the Sundance Film Festival, Thursday, January 23, 2020, in Park City, Utah. During the celebratory event, Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, will be honored with the Vanguard Award for Philanthropy. Proceeds from the evening will advance Sundance Institute's mission and programs that discover, support and amplify risk-taking and exciting independent film, media and theatre artists. In addition to Presenting Sponsor IMDbPro, the event is supported by Lead Sponsor the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation.

Sundance Institute announced today two support tracks for artists from underrepresented communities, continuing the Institute's commitment to fostering inclusive artistic visions. Announced today are the eight members of the second class of the Momentum Fellowship, a full-year program of deep, customized creative and professional support for writers, directors, and producers from underrepresented communities who are poised to take the next step in their careers, working across documentary and feature filmmaking, and episodic content. Sundance Institute also announced the four awardees of the inaugural Launch Grant Fund, a new opportunity for emerging filmmakers from underrepresented communities launching their first feature film.

The hit movie starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters turned stage play comes to Bootless Stageworks to open its 2019-2020 season.

The Group Rep is proud to present George A. Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead,' adapted for the stage by Gus Krieger, directed by Drina Durazo, produced by Larry Eisenberg, October 4 through November 10, on the Main Stage of the Lonny Chapman Theatre in North Hollywood. California.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have released their newest comedy, Good Boys. In the R-rated comedy, three sixth grade boys ditch school and embark on an epic journey while carrying accidentally stolen drugs, being hunted by teenage girls, and trying to make their way home in time for a long-awaited party.

Joana Vicente and Cameron Bailey, Co-Heads of TIFF, today announced that Academy Award–nominated New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi will be honoured with the TIFF Ebert Director Award at this year's new TIFF Tribute Gala awards event. The award recognizes and honours a distinguished filmmaker for their outstanding contribution to cinema. Taking place on Monday, September 9 at Fairmont Royal York, during the 44th Toronto International Film Festival, the Gala is an annual fundraiser to support TIFF's year-round programmes and core mission to transform the way people see the world through film, and to celebrate the film industry's outstanding contributors.

Tonight, Moulin Rouge officially opens on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, but that wouldn't be possible without the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film that took audiences by storm. Moulin Rouge was a jukebox musical romantic drama film that was the third and final installment of Red Curtain Trilogy, Luhrmann's film concept that included Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet. 

OVID.tv, the leading streaming service for documentary and art-house films, announced its line-up of 24 films joining its growing library of films in August 2019, most of which are not available on any other platform.

Tickets for The Band's Visit will go on sale to the public on Friday, June 28, at 10 a.m. The show plays a one-week engagement Aug. 27-Sept. 1, to kick off the Peace Center's 2019-2020 Broadway series.

In 1994 moviegoers met a man named Forrest Gump whose story was both a deeply personal and affecting odyssey and a universal meditation on our times.  Hailed as “magical” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times) and filled with “startling grace” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone), FORREST GUMP became not only a global blockbuster, but a true cultural touchstone. 

Roger Ebert's Film Festival, co-founded and hosted by Chaz Ebert and also known as 'Ebertfest,” announced today that the 22nd Annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival will take place April 15-18, 2020 at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, IL with related talks and panel discussions to be held at the Hyatt Place in Champaign and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In a fitting sequel to last year's daylong slate of activities across Chicago, rogerebert.com, and the Roger and Chaz Ebert Foundation once again are honoring their namesake's legacy with the 2019 observance of Day4Empathy in the city. Today, Thursday, April 4th is the sixth anniversary of the celebrated film critic and author's untimely death, and to that end the Day4Empathy continues to reinforce the late Roger Ebert's embrace of the universal concepts of empathy, and his staunch belief in the necessity of humility, compassion and paying small, unassuming acts of kindness forward.