CHAMPAIGN – Opening night of Eberfest is Wednesday, April 17th at the Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign. Now in its 25th year, the annual film festival showcases films, filmmakers, and special guests, including famed actors and musicians. Nate Kohn has been the festival director since its founding in 1999 and spoke with Morning Edition host Kimberly Schofield about its history and what the community can see this year.
Kimberly Schofield: What does your role entail as the Festival Director? What responsibilities do you have? Because it seems like it would be a whole lot for this entire 25th anniversary of Roger Ebert’s Film Festival.
Nate Kohn: There are really only three of us that work on the festival: myself, Chaz Ebert, and Molly Cornyn. And so as festival director, I worked with chairs on selecting the films and I work with Molly Cornyn on getting the filmmakers to come with the films and just generally overseeing how the festival is put together.
KS: How did you first get involved in Ebertfest?
NK: In 1997, I was at the university. I just got my PhD and I was asked to help produce Cyberfest, which was a birthday party for HAL, the computer from the movie 2001: Space Odyssey. The Computer Science department noted that in the film, that computer said that it was born in Urbana, Illinois in 1997. So they decided to give it a birthday party. One of the things we did was invite Roger Ebert down from Chicago to host the event and to show a 70 millimeter print of the movie in the Virginia Theater, which had been closed for a number of years. So we reopened the theater, discovered that there was still 70 millimeter projection in the theater, and showed the film to a large audience and it was very successful. After that, we started talking about doing a film festival at the Virginia and I was asked to be director of the festival and we started in 1999. So that was basically how it began.
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KS: How do you all decide what films should be playing at the festival?
NK: We just talk about it. There’s really no criteria to be met. Chaz and I select the films in the same manner that Roger selected him when he was alive: based on films that we think are important in that particular moment, films we think deserve a second look or have been overlooked, and films that just generally deal with the themes of empathy, which Chaz is and Roger were very cognizant of. It’s not a formal process. We don’t accept any submissions. So we’re not looking at films that people ask us to see for consideration or submit them to us. Chaz and I go to a lot of festivals during the year, we see a lot of films, and we just select them based on what we think is meaningful in the moment.
KS: For the 25th year of Ebertfest, is there anything special that’s happening or can audience members expect a similar celebration?
NK: They can expect a similar celebration with a few surprises thrown in to celebrate the 25th year. That just struck us last year. We didn’t realize that it was 25 years. It’s gone really quickly.
KS: Are there any films or speakers who are attending who you’re especially looking forward to?
NK: Well, of course, I’m looking forward to all of them. A couple that are interesting: one is Omoiyari: A Song Film by Kishi Bashi, which will have a performance by Kishi Bashi afterwards. He is a singer, multi-instrument songwriter who actually got his start in Athens, Georgia, where I now live – I’m a professor at the University of Georgia – so there’s somebody from my hometown, current hometown, who’s performing at the festival. It’s an extraordinary documentary about the Japanese internment camps in World War Two. Another film is Albany Road, which is written and directed by Christine Swanson, who’s an old friend of mine, and has taught in my low-residency screenwriting program at the University of Georgia. So those are two films that that have kind of a personal connection. I’m looking forward to seeing.
KS: Is there anything you’d like our listeners to know?
NK: Come celebrate this event with us. It’s really an important event in the Champaign-Urbana community and we just we like to have new people in attendance. So anybody who’s listening who has never been to the festival, we invite you to come out because it’s an extraordinary event.