Ebert returns to Overlooked Film Festival
Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert is photographed at home in his office Monday in Chicago. Ebert plans to attend his annual festival for overlooked movies at the University this week, re-entering the public eye for the first time since having canc Dom Najolia, AP
April 25, 2007
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – He’ll be sitting in a recliner and won’t say a word. But iconic film critic Roger Ebert will be back in public Wednesday night at his ninth annual Overlooked Film Festival.
Ebert hasn’t appeared in public since last June, when he had the first of two operations to remove a cancerous growth from his salivary gland and right jaw. Doctors removed a portion of the jaw, and Ebert needed a tracheostomy – an opening in his wind pipe – to breathe, leaving him unable to speak.
In a column in Tuesday’s Chicago Sun-Times and an e-mail sent to reporters, Ebert said he’ll attend the festival even though friends have advised against it.
“I was told photos of me in this condition would attract the gossip papers,” he wrote. “So what?”
“To paraphrase a line from ‘Raging Bull,’ I ain’t a pretty boy no more,” Ebert wrote.
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He’ll watch the festival’s movies – including opening night’s “Gattaca” – from a recliner, he wrote, because of back pain.
That means he won’t take his customary place on stage introducing films and leading post-showing discussions, festival director Nate Kohn said.
“Roger on stage is the heart and soul of the festival,” said Kohn, a University of Georgia professor.
That said, Ebert is “participating in every way except going on stage,” according to Kohn. “He’s doing everything he normally does in terms of selecting the films.”
Along with “Gattaca,” this year’s festival also is scheduled to include showings of “La Dolce Vita,” “Come Early Morning” and “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” the 1970 film co-written by Ebert.
Discussions this year will be conducted by panels of Ebert’s colleagues, Kohn said. Many of the movies will be introduced by actors who were in them or by their directors. Alan Rickman, for instance, is expected to introduce “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” on Thursday night.
The festival, intended to showcase a broad range of films that Ebert believes are in some way overlooked, is in its ninth year. The film festival is always held in Champaign and Urbana, Ill. The latter is Ebert’s hometown and the University of Illinois, his alma mater, straddles the boundary between the cities.
Ebert has written that he hopes an upcoming operation will restore his speech.
