Thought-provoking Ebert Symposium precedes 25th annual film festival

With another Roger Ebert’s Film Festival approaching soon (April 23-26) in Champaign, Illinois, the last three films have now been added to the schedule at Ebertfest.com: Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” Walter Salles’ Academy-Award winning “I’m Still Here,” and Lotte Reiniger’s “The Adventures of Prince Achmed.” With some tickets still available, it was great to learn that Coppola will participate in a virtual Q&A immediately following the screening of “Megalopolis” at 9 a.m. on Thursday, April 24.

The Virginia Theatre in Champaign, Illinois, is the home of Roger Ebert’s Film Festival.

But prior to the opening of the festival that features the 70mm showing of “The Searchers” with John Wayne, the Chaz and Roger Ebert Symposium will be screening Spike Jonze’s award-winning film, “Her” at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 22, in the Knight Auditorium of the Spurlock Museum in Urbana at no charge as part of this year’s theme, “Artificial Intelligence Imagined and Realized.” The film “follows the solitary life of Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) as he begins to use the AI chat technology Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) to come to terms with the break-up of his relationship. The film melds technology and the human condition through a quiet and moving journey of self-discovery.”

The symposium is a free, two-day event April 22-23 on the University of Illinois campus that will also include a keynote speaker and two roundtable discussions. The purpose of this year’s symposium is “to bridge academic research  with broader cultural conversations about the uses of artificial intelligence.”

Julie Turnock, the director of the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies at the UI College of Media who heads up the Ebert Symposium, said, “Roger Ebert was at the forefront of exploring the activist and innovative potential in diverse forms of communication and critique, starting with print journalism, and extending through cinema, television and social media.

“The Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies is dedicated to furthering his legacy,” she continued. “As Ebert himself said, ‘It’s not what a movie is about but how it is about it.’  More than ever, film and moving images writ large are among the most significant contributors to art, culture, and thought in the last century, and continue to grow in importance as new technologies make it easier to make and distribute film and video. Not only film and television, but ‘viral videos’ on the internet and even video games convey ideas and attitudes that contribute to what individuals think about themselves and about their societies.”

This year’s keynote speaker is Scott Bukatman, professor of film and media studies at Stanford University. His talk the next day at 9:30 a.m. will use “science fiction, film and comics to explore how AI helps reveal ‘the downside of personality.’”

Following at 11 a.m. the roundtable discussion will focus on “the intersection between science fiction and engineering. The conversation will cover the interplay within real-world AI technologies by concentrating on the portrayals of artificial intelligence in film and popular culture.”

Panelists for the roundtable include UI professors Heng Ji (computer science), Alison Duncan Kerr (philosophy), Ben Grosser (new media) and Robert Markley (English).

The keynote address and the 11 a.m. roundtable can also be viewed online over Zoom by registering at https://media.illinois.edu/ebert-symposium.

And finally a roundtable with Ebertfest filmmaker guests will be 2 p.m. at Hyatt Place in downtown Champaign. These varied guests from Ebertfest will offer different perspectives in further understanding AI usage in the world at large: moderator and longtime Ebertfest guest Eric Pierson, a professor of communication studies at the University of San Diego; director and writer Guy Maddin, attending Ebertfest with his film, “Rumours”; director and writer Azazel Jacobs, attending Ebertfest with his film, “His Three Daughters”; and director Barbara Kopple, attending Ebertfest with her Academy Award-winning documentary, “Harlan County U.S.A.”

The compelling and entertaining experience of watching movies as a community and digging deeper with filmmakers and critics into what those works are conveying and evoking in us is an extraordinary opportunity that Champaign-Urbana has been gifted through the legacy of hometown kid Roger Ebert and the ongoing care of Chaz Ebert and Nate Kohn, another hometown kid.

My brain always gets a good workout with the festivals, and my appreciation for living here grows. Take advantage of attending these events, and I’m sure you’ll feel the same way.