Last year Ebertfest seemed to improve his rate of recovery exponentially, so we can only hope he'll make it to town.

Erfuth and Joseph Greco and Adam Hammel ('Canvas'). L to R (I hope): Jeff Nichols ('Shotgun Stories'), John Peterson ('The Real Dirt on Farmer John'), Eran Kolirin ('The Band's Visit'), Chaz Ebert, Timothy Spall and Rufus Sewell ('Hamlet'), Joan Cohl and Hannah Fisher ('Citizen Kohl'), William J. [UPDATE: The next day Roger and his doctors decided that making the trip wasn't worth the health risk.} Chaz said they were consulting with doctors day by day and that she wouldn't be surprised if Roger wound up making it here after all before the fest is through. But, she reported him saying, you could also say the same thing about the day he tripped on the carpet and fractured his hip. What is Ebertfest without Ebert? Fest? Kicking off the 10th Anniversary edition of Roger Ebert's (formerly Overlooked) Film Festival, Chaz Ebert passed along her husband's sentiments that, today, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time - that is, in a bed in Chicago instead of in at the Virginia Theatrer in Urbana-Champaign. The difference is, the hero of 'Chop Shop' wasn't trying to win a million rupees-just to survive.Ĭhaz Ebert introduces Timothy Spall (Rosencrantz) and Rufus Sewell (Fortinbras), both in town with the opening night attraction, a full-length (238-minute) 70 mm print of Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film of William Shakespeare's 'Hamlet.' (photos by jim emerson) While it was splendid, it was not as original or really as moving as the American indie 'Chop Shop,' made a year earlier. When an unconventional film like 'Slumdog Millionaire' breaks out, it's the exception that proves the rule. distribution system freezes out films lacking big stars, big ad budgets, ready-made teenage audiences, or exploitable hooks.

Those numbers underline the crisis in independent, foreign or documentary films-art films. Yet even after the Oscar nods, it has grossed only about $2.5 million and has been unseen in theaters by most of the nation.

One of my choices this year, 'Frozen River,' was in danger of being overlooked when I first invited it, but then it realized the dream of every indie film, found an audience and won two Oscar nominations.

It's a good thing Ebertfest is no longer called the Overlooked Film Festival.

Rufus sewell