New Documentary on Roger Ebert to Premiere Throughout Remaining Ebertfest

This April marks a bittersweet milestone for lovers of movie and movie criticism: The ultimate version of Roger Ebert’s Movie Pageant — AKA Ebertfest — within the late critic’s hometown of Champaign, Illinois.

Launched by Ebert himself in 1999 because the “Missed Movie Pageant,” Ebertfest was initially designed as a spot for the longtime Chicago Solar-Instances critic and Siskel & Ebert host to champion motion pictures he felt deserved extra love, and to display screen them on the attractive Virginia Theatre in Champaign, the place Ebert grew up and likewise studied journalism on the College of Illinois. In 2007, the competition dropped the “Missed” identify and have become “Roger Ebert’s Movie Pageant” — though just about everybody simply calls it Ebertfest.

Though Ebert handed away in 2013, his widow, Chaz Ebert, has continued the Ebertfest custom in his honor since then. Though she beforehand mentioned 2025’s competition can be the ultimate one, not less than in its conventional type, a 2026 Ebertfest was ultimately introduced, billed as “The Final Dance.”

Fittingly, this system for the farewell competition features a new documentary about Roger Ebert and his competition dubbed The Final Film Critic. Directed by Luke Boyce and Michael Moreci, the movie options footage compiled from 15 totally different Ebertfests, and contains appearances from different critics, plus filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, Werner Herzog, Tilda Swinton, Ava DuVernay, Joachim Trier, and Ramin Bahrani.

Forward of The Final Film Critic’s premiere at Ebertfest, right here is its poster, by artist Viktor Miller Gausa.

READ MORE: The 50 Greatest Siskel & Ebert Evaluations for Their fiftieth Anniversary

Right here is The Final Film Critic’s official synopsis:

This isn’t one other Roger Ebert biography. Written and directed by Luke Boyce and Michael Moreci, and based mostly on the writings of Roger Ebert, The Final Film Critic follows a younger movie pupil who arrives at Ebertfest with a query: what was Roger Ebert’s secret? What made him not simply probably the most celebrated movie critic on the earth, however a singular determine whose love of cinema felt like a calling? Her search leads her via the competition he constructed and the movies he believed in, guided by Roger himself, whose writing turns into the voice of the movie, illuminating his philosophies and his lifelong conviction that motion pictures have the ability to make us extra empathetic, extra curious, and extra human.

The Final Film Critic premieres on April 17 on the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, Illinois throughout the last Ebertfest. The competition additionally contains screenings of Buster Keaton’s The Basic, Jordan Peele’s Get Out, a efficiency of the stage manufacturing Siskel/Ebert, and a screening of The American President in tribute to the late Rob Reiner.

Tickets for the competition obtainable at the Virginia’s website. It’s also possible to see the total lineup of movies at RogerEbert.com.