London Film Festival 2024 Highlights | Festivals & Awards

Contrary to the laurels ensconcing every independent movie poster and advertisement, not every film festival presentation is going to be a winner. Once you cut through the glitz of celebrity and flashing lights over the red carpet, sometimes these movies simply aren’t very good. I was pleased, then, that of the fourteen or so films … Read more

Chicago International Film Festival Pays Tribute to Hirokazu Kore-Eda | Festivals & Awards

One of the best living filmmakers is getting a well-deserved showcase this weekend at the Chicago International Film Festival when Hirokazu Kore-eda will be honored by a fest that I’ve always associated closely with one of my absolute favorite directors. CIFF has been a platform for Kore-eda multiple times, and they’re the fest that helped … Read more

Chicago International Film Festival 2024 Preview | Festivals & Awards

The Chicago International Film Festival returns this week for what is arguably its most ambitious program to date, an appropriate feat given the fest is also celebrating its 60th anniversary. The variety and scope of this year’s program is arguably unmatched, continuing the momentum garnered last year when the fest hosted the Chicago premieres of … Read more

Chaz Ebert to Speak at Decatur Book Festival with Gregory Berns | Uncategorized

Join Chaz Ebert this Saturday, October 5th at the Decatur Book Festival, where she’ll be speaking with Gregory Berns, author and neuroscientist. Ebert Digital CEO and Publisher of RogerEbert.com, Chaz Ebert will appear at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel on Saturday, October 5 at 4:15pm EST. More information from the official media advisory can be found … Read more

New York Film Festival presents screenings of the films “Stranger Eyes,” “Harvest,” and “Who By Fire,” as part of its lineup for Festivals & Awards.

The leaves are changing, the weather is cooling, and film enthusiasts are gathering outside Alice Tully Hall and the Walter Reade Theater as New York welcomes the fall season with the latest installment of the New York Film Festival. Since its inception in 1963 with the screening of Luis Buñuel’s “The Exterminating Angel,” the festival … Read more

New York Film Festival 2024: Preview and Thoughts on “The Brutalist,” “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” | Festivals & Awards

For Gotham cinephiles, the New York Film Festival has its annual launch on the last Friday of September (the 2024 edition runs Sept. 27-Oct. 13). For critics, journalists and certain industry folks, though, the event begins a couple of weeks earlier, when festival press screenings commence at Lincoln Center. Those screenings don’t display films in … Read more

TIFF 2024: A Canadian Perspective on This Year’s Festival of Festivals | Festivals & Awards

A year ago, I wrote about the real challenges the Toronto International Film Festival has faced in trying to reclaim its spot at the top of the fall festival events. With the ascendance of both Venice and Telluride over the last decade, as well as the one-two punch of the COVID lockdown and the WGA/SAG strikes that … Read more

The Telluride Tea: My Diary of the 2024 Telluride Film Festival | Festivals & Awards

Just like Vegas, Telluride Film Festival has an unspoken ethos: “What happens in — stays in —.” While part of me wants to keep all of its secrets to myself, I can’t help but become an open book when it comes to talking about Telluride and its infamously exclusive film festival.  In both 2022 and … Read more

Wrapping Up My Experiences at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival | Festivals & Awards

The last time I went to the Telluride Film Festival it was under vastly different circumstances. Back in 2021, the film world (along with the rest of the planet) was still grappling with the effects of the pandemic’s worst stretches. To attend that year, you needed to be vaccinated and have a negative COVID test. … Read more