Ebertfest: Roger Ebert's Film Festival

Ebertfest: Roger Ebert's Film Festival
A view of the Virginia Theatre's marquee in 2014 for Roger Ebert's Film Festival
Status	Active
Genre	Film festival
Frequency	Annually
Location(s)	Champaign, Illinois
Country	United States
Years active	1999–present
Founder	Roger Ebert
Previous event	18th Annual Ebertfest April 13–17, 2016
Next event	19th Annual Ebertfest April 19-23, 2017
Capacity	1,463 (Virginia Theatre)
People	Roger Ebert Chaz Ebert
Website
ebertfest.com

Roger Ebert's Film Festival, originally known as Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival but commonly referred to as simply Ebertfest, is an annual film festival held every April in Champaign, Illinois, United States, organized by the College of Media at the University of Illinois. Roger Ebert, the TV and Chicago Sun-Times film critic, was a native of the adjoining town of Urbana, Illinois and is an alumnus of the University. Founded in 1999, this event is the only long-running film festival created by a critic. Despite Ebert’s death in 2013, the festival continues to operate based on Ebert’s notes and vision for the kinds of films he championed.

The festival is a direct descendant of a program put on at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997 called Cyberfest which used the supposed birthday of HAL (the computer in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey) to highlight the University's involvement in the history of computers and computing. The film was to be shown as part of Cyberfest, Roger Ebert had agreed to host and actor Gary Lockwood was a special guest.

It was suggested that the film should ideally be shown as it was originally, in 70 mm format. The original plan was to have the screening at the University's performing arts center but time constraints vs. the need to install projection equipment and elaborate six channel sound made this impossible. Someone suggested looking at the Virginia Theatre, as 70 mm films had been shown there in the past. At this point the theatre was in the hands of a local live theatre group and had not run films since sold by a theatre chain. All concerned were pleasantly surprised to learn the chain had left behind not only what is reputed to be the finest 35/70 mm projector made but also the screen and speakers. The rest of the equipment was brought in for the special showing which went perfectly.

Since its inception in 1999, Ebertfest has been held at the Virginia Theatre, an old-time movie palace in Champaign built in 1921 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The theatre is now owned by the Champaign Park District. Ebert spoke of having attended films at the Virginia while growing up in Champaign-Urbana and attending the University. It was Ebert's intention that all festival attendees see all of the films in a single theatre in order to create a sense of community among film lovers.