Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies
ABOUT THE ROGER EBERT CENTER FOR FILM STUDIES
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 Angela Aguayo, acting director and associate professor of media and cinema studies, at ajaguayo@illinois.edu.
Learn more about Ebert Center initiatives.
Watch a recording of Martin Scorsese's message about the launch of the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies:
UPCOMING EBERT CENTER EVENTS
- September 14, 2023: Welcome Event: Roger Ebert Center + You
- October 26, 2023: Roger Ebert Lecture and Screening: Iranian Cinema—Screening of Fariyad-e Nim-e Shab / Cry of Midnight
- October 27, 2023: Roger Ebert Lecture and Screening: Iranian Cinema—"Provenance, Fakes, and Feuds: Building Expertise around Transnational Genre in 1960s Iran," presented by Kaveh Askari, MSU
- November 30, 2023: Ebert Center Screening: The Cult Film Experience
Watch a recording of the 2023 Roger Ebert Lecture:
PAST EBERT CENTER EVENTS
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April 19, 2023: Ebert Symposium Keynote and Roundtable Discussions
Watch a recording of the keynote by Amir George of Kartemquin Films:
- April 18, 2023: Ebert Symposium Film Screening: Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One
- October 28, 2022: Roger Ebert Lecture: "Re-Enchanting Our Relationship to Film and Media History: A Brief Survey of the Media Ecology Project," presented by Mark Williams (BA '78, LAS), Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Dartmouth College and Director of the Media Ecology Project
Watch a recording of the inaugural Roger Ebert Lecture:
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 the Eberts 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.