The Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies officially launched in 2022 thanks to gifts totaling more than $5 million from a collection of donors—inspired by a lead gift from Roger and Chaz Ebert. The Ebert Center will offer robust annual programming, including the Ebert Symposium, Ebert Lecture, and a screening series. It will also support Ebert research grants and travel grants for film studies as well as the long-running Ebert Fellows Program, which selects three undergraduate students per year for an in-depth experiential learning opportunity. Learn more about the Ebert Center’s launch.
For more information about the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies, please contact Julie Turnock, director and professor of media and cinema studies, at jturnock@illinois.edu.
Calendar
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28 Mar
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31 Mar
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22 Apr7:00 pm
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23 Apr9:30 am – 3:00 pm
Ebert Center Event Snapshots
Videos
Martin Scorsese on the launch of the Ebert Center
About Roger Ebert
The famed Roger Ebert, who died in 2013, was an Urbana native, a University of Illinois journalism alumnus (BS ’64), a longtime film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, and co-host of numerous televised movie review shows. He was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first film critic honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
When Roger and Chaz Ebert established the endowment for the center in 2009, Roger said: “The University of Illinois is deep in my heart as a great institution. It informed and enriched me. Although there were no film courses when I was an undergraduate, it nevertheless guided me in my lifelong love of film.”
If you wish to contribute to the center, you can give online and select “Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies” under Champion Innovation in Media Research & Collaborations.
Past Ebert Center Events
Fall 2024
- September 19: Ebert Center Welcome and Screening: Pan’s Labyrinth
- October 17: Ebert Center Screening: “Kartemquin’s Labor Films: Stories of Working in America”
- October 18: Roger Ebert Lecture: “Documentaries on the Frontlines of Democracy: How Kartemquin’s Storytelling Works for Stronger Publics” | Watch recording
- November 7: Ebert Center Screening: Pumping Iron and the Aestheticization of Politics
- November 14: Ebert Center Screening: Alien: Romulus
- December 5: Ebert Center Screening: Gremlins
Spring 2024
- February 22: Ebert Center Screening: Poor Things
- February 29: Ebert Center Screening: Train to Busan
- March 21: Ebert Center Screening: Ovarian Psycos
- March 22: Ebert Center Discussion: Women Make Movies (with Women’s Resources Center)
- April 4: Ebert Fellows Curated Film: Portrait of a Lady on Fire and After Party
- April 16-17: Ebert Symposium: Representations and Their Critics | Watch April 16 panel | Watch April 17 panel
Fall 2023
- September 14: Welcome Event: Roger Ebert Center + You
- October 26: Roger Ebert Lecture and Screening: Iranian Cinema—Screening of Fariyad-e Nim-e Shab / Cry of Midnight
- October 27: Roger Ebert Lecture and Screening: Iranian Cinema—”Provenance, Fakes, and Feuds: Building Expertise around Transnational Genre in 1960s Iran,” presented by Kaveh Askari, MSU | Watch recording
- November 30: Ebert Center Screening: The Cult Film Experience
Spring 2023
- April 18: Ebert Symposium Film Screening: Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One
April 19: Ebert Symposium Keynote: “To Be Radical” presented by Amir George from Kartemquin Films, and Roundtable Discussions | Watch keynote
Fall 2022
- October 28: Roger Ebert Lecture: “Re-Enchanting Our Relationship to Film and Media History: A Brief Survey of the Media Ecology Project,” presented by Mark Williams, Dartmouth College, Director of the Media Ecology Project | Watch recording
Fall 2020
- Ebert Symposium Virtual Series: “The Movie Industry in a Time of Change,” “Documentary Film and Social Change, “Representation in Media”
Fall 2019
- Ebert Symposium: “Creating an Inclusive Media and Cinema Ecosystem”
Fall 2018
- Inaugural Ebert Symposium: “Empathy for the Universe: Storytelling and Data Visualization”