If Ebertfest Comes to an End, It's a Huge Loss for Film Fans Who Aren't Chasing That Awards Calendar

"In April 2009, when I was just a freshman in college, I drove four hours across state lines to attend the Ebertfest Film Festival in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, then in its eleventh year. I didn't go for a starry premiere of the latest awards contender or to gawk at celebrities on the red carpet, but because a fellow journalist - then Roger Ebert's print editor at the Chicago Sun Times - was gracious enough to invite an aspiring film writer to meet other people and spend the weekend with a film-loving community."

""Roger said that 'movies are a machine that generates empathy and allows us to understand the lives of a person of a different age, race, gender, religion, or socio-economic class for two hours at a time' and that kind of empathy remains much needed in our society to help us realize that we are all in this together," Chaz Ebert wrote in her announcement."

"For now, the festival is on "hiatus," not gone. Chaz Ebert, in speaking with IndieWire, said it's better to say it's "to be continued," but she already knows she's going to miss the festival as it was. The festival was put on each year in partnership with the university's College of Media, and Ebert wrote that financial considerations facing both the festival and universities generally "have led us to the conclusion that there is not a clearly sustainable path for the festival in its present form.""

A personal attendee account recalls traveling to Ebertfest in 2009 and forming film-community connections that later aided a move to Los Angeles and graduate study at USC. Ebertfest held a longstanding role at the Virginia Theater in Champaign-Urbana for 26 years, fostering opportunities for aspiring film writers and film lovers. Chaz Ebert announced that the festival will pause, describing the status as a hiatus or "to be continued." Financial pressures on the festival and on universities led to the conclusion that the event lacks a clearly sustainable path in its current form, creating uncertainty about future iterations.

Read at IndieWire