Brian Williams, former anchor of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Brian Williams and NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, will be on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus for a conversation about the evolution of broadcast news in America on Monday, October 23, 7-8 p.m.
Attendees may join the event at the Beckman Institute Auditorium, 405 N. Mathews, Urbana, or register to join via Zoom. The conversation will be led by Colleen King, director of the Frank Center and clinical assistant professor of journalism. King worked closely with Williams as his executive producer of The 11th Hour.
“Working with Brian Williams was the privilege of a lifetime and a daily course in broadcast excellency,” King said. “I can’t wait to hear him reflect on his 40 years in television—and to introduce him to our students, so he can offer advice on reporting, interviewing, and on-air delivery.”
Brian Williams is a 40-year veteran of television news and is among the most highly decorated journalists of his generation. He has received a dozen Emmy Awards, 11 Edward R. Murrow Awards, the duPont-Columbia Award, the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the industry’s highest honor: the George Foster Peabody Award, which he received for his tireless coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Over the course of his career, he covered every major story imaginable: political conventions and presidential elections, our nation’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, conflict in the Middle East, natural disasters, and countless mass-casualty tragedies in the United States and abroad. He traveled to more than two dozen countries, many of them aboard Air Force One. He has interviewed six American presidents.
For more information, please contact Colleen King, director of the Frank Center and clinical assistant professor of journalism, at cck@illinois.edu.
Brian Williams, former anchor of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Brian Williams and NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, will be on campus for a conversation about the evolution of broadcast news in America.
A 40-year veteran of television news, Williams has received a dozen Emmy Awards, 11 Edward R. Murrow Awards, the duPont-Columbia Award, the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the industry’s highest honor: the George Foster Peabody Award.
The conversation will be led by Colleen King, director of the Frank Center and clinical assistant professor of journalism. King worked closely with Williams as his executive producer of The 11th Hour.
Brian Williams is a 40-year veteran of television news and is among the most highly decorated journalists of his generation. After 28 years at NBC News, he signed off the air for the last time on December 9, 2021.
Over the course of his career, he covered every major story imaginable: political conventions and presidential elections, our nation’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, conflict in the Middle East, natural disasters, and countless mass-casualty tragedies in the United States and abroad. He traveled to more than two dozen countries, many of them aboard Air Force One. He has interviewed six American presidents.
His work has been richly rewarded, with a dozen Emmy Awards, 11 Edward R. Murrow Awards, the duPont-Columbia Award, the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the industry’s highest honor: the George Foster Peabody Award, which he received for his tireless coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. His televised reports from New Orleans were praised by Vanity Fair as “Murrow-worthy.”
During the decade he spent as anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, it was the most-watched news broadcast in the United States—and Williams was viewed by more people on a daily basis than any other broadcaster. At the time of his retirement from NBC, he was anchor of the critically-acclaimed 11th Hour with Brian Williams, which chronicled the 2016 election and its aftermath, including the January 6th insurrection and the failed attempt to overturn a presidential election.
Williams joined NBC in 1993 after a dozen years in local news. Two years later, he was named Chief White House Correspondent. In 2007, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Along the way, he became a favorite of late-night talk show audiences, and in 2008 he became the first evening news anchor to host Saturday Night Live. In 2014, Williams was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame by fellow member Bruce Springsteen.
Beyond his family, his first love has always been firefighting—and that remains true today. He applied for enrollment in the fire academy at the age of 18, and has served as a volunteer firefighter for many years. He is currently an active and fully accredited member of the fire service in Ocean County, New Jersey. He has been a member of the Leary Firefighters Foundation Board of Directors for 10 years, where he is proud to advocate for the needs of the nation’s 130,000 volunteer firefighters.
The Master of Science in Advertising degree granted by the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising is now officially designated as a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) degree—the first master’s in advertising program to do so—effective Spring 2024, based on a department review of the curriculum and strategic goals of the program.
The MS in Advertising program at Illinois proudly stands as the pioneer in transforming its program classification to STEM among advertising master’s degree programs in the nation. All domestic and international students will benefit, as STEM skills in digital media are highly sought by employers.
“This new program code better represents the current master’s in advertising program focus, curriculum, and faculty expertise relating to digital communications and advertising,” said Associate Head of Graduate Studies Chang-Dae Ham, associate professor of advertising. “It reflects many of the courses taught within the program, the research interests of faculty and graduate students, and the changing media landscape—we are better preparing our students for jobs in the future of advertising and beyond.”
The University of Illinois program review granted the updated Classification of Instructional Program (CIP) code. The code is “Digital Communication and Media/Multimedia (09.0702): A program that focuses on the development, use, critical evaluation, and regulation of new electronic communication technologies using computer applications; and that prepares individuals to function as developers and managers of digital communications media.”
The STEM CIP code allows international students (F-1 visa) with the possibility of a 24-month employment extension of their 12-month Optional Practical Training (OPT) authorization. International students can then work for 36 months with the MS Advertising degree in the United States.
The technological changes shaping the media landscape have expanded the work in the advertising and brand communication fields. The Digital Communication and Media/Multimedia code reflects the current skill set requirements within the media industry—especially for those in higher degree programs seeking data-driven and computational jobs—and the advanced degree coursework in the MS in Advertising program.
Advertising professionals in many occupations are required to analyze and interpret data that is fundamental to innovative problem solving and strategic thinking, gauge human interactions with online and offline media, create effective digital brand communications, and understand the changing regulatory and ethical implications of digital communications.
“Our commitment extends to fostering a diverse and multidisciplinary approach in both research and teaching, enriching the educational experience for our esteemed MS Advertising students,” Ham added.
Note: The STEM classification only includes the master’s degree in advertising and not the bachelor’s degree in advertising.
This fall welcomes two new heads of academic units, a new center director, a new associate head of advertising graduate studies, three faculty promotions, and two new faculty in the College of Media.
Professor Michelle Nelson will serve as the head of the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising for a three-year appointment. Nelson is a past president of the American Academy of Advertising. Her research interest focuses on advertising literacy and political advertising.
Professor Mike Yao has been appointed as the director of the Institute of Communications Research. He previously served as head of the Department of Advertising. Yao’s research delves into the interplay between media technology, society, and human communication. He studies how people engage with emerging technologies like AI, immersive multimedia, and extended reality across diverse social settings, and how these interactions influence our social behaviors and human communication within technology-mediated digital spaces.
Angela Aguayo, associate professor of media and cinema studies, will serve this year as acting director of the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies. She has previously served as Dean’s Fellow for Strategic Initiatives. Her research is centered around documentary production and media studies, connecting production, theory, and history.
Chang-Dae Ham, associate professor of advertising, has been appointed as associate head of graduate studies for the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising for a three-year appointment. Ham studies persuasion knowledge and digital advertising.
Three faculty in the College of Media have been promoted:
Jason P. Chambers has been promoted to professor of advertising. He also serves as Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He is a scholar of advertising history, particularly the contributions of African Americans to the industry, and has a new book titled Advertising Revolutionary: The Life and Work of Tom Burrell that will be published in early 2024.
Ewa Maslowska has been promoted to associate professor of advertising with indefinite tenure. Her research centers around marketing communication and consumer behavior, specifically consumer-brand interactions in the context of new technologies.
Julie Turnock has been promoted to professor of media and cinema studies. She served as the inaugural director of the Ebert Center and is on sabbatical this year. Turnock’s research focuses on film, with an emphasis on special/visual effects. She is working on her third book, a technical, industrial, and aesthetic history of the special effects industry in the Hollywood studio era, circa 1915-1960. Informed by extensive archival research, it centers around the labor and artistry performed by unsung “below-the-line” studio effects workers whose skills make much of “movie magic” possible.
The Department of Journalism welcomes two new faculty members: Nancy Averett, lecturer, who specializes in science and environmental journalism, and Alex Gonçalves, assistant professor, who is a scholar of social media and data journalism.
Norman Denzin, research professor emeritus of communications at the Institute of Communications Research, professor emeritus of media and cinema studies, and professor emeritus of sociology and humanities at the University of Illinois, passed away on August 6 at the age of 82.
Denzin was one of the world’s foremost authorities on qualitative research and cultural criticism, and a renowned figure in symbolic interactionist theory.
A writer, scholar, teacher, and visionary, Denzin was also a mentor to many generations of students, faculty, and staff at the College of Media, especially within ICR.
Professor CL Cole, the head of the Department of Media & Cinema Studies, co-authored a special issue on Denzin for the Journal of Sport and Social Issues in 2006 with Robert E. Rinehart, one of Denzin’s former students at UIUC.
In it they wrote: “It is impossible to list all of his contributions or to fully express how his work has positively affected countless others. It is impossible to detail how his prolific writing, his creative vision and fresh ways of thinking have created a sea-change in those who have encountered them, struggled with them, incorporated them. It is also impossible to recount how his charming, easy-going affability, and generosity of spirit have lent themselves to mentees, friends, colleagues, students.”
Denzin was affiliated with several units on campus, including the Department of Sociology, Center for Global Studies, and Women and Gender in Global Perspectives.
He began in the sociology department in the early 1980s and joined ICR a decade later. He was also active in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory. In 2005, he founded the annual International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry conference, hosted by the International Center for Qualitative Inquiry, from which a series of journals were produced.
Denzin was the author, co-author, or co-editor of more than 50 books and 200 professional articles and chapters and was still actively authoring and co-authoring papers as recently as last year.
He was awarded the prestigious Charles H. Cooley Award for his book, The Alcoholic Self, and the George Herbert Mead Award for lifetime contributions to the study of human interaction, both from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction.
Tracy Sulkin, who has served as dean of the University of Illinois College of Media since 2018, has been reappointed for a five-year term, pending Board of Trustees approval.
The reappointment follows a review of Sulkin’s first term.
“The Dean’s Evaluation Committee was generous with its praise for her transparent and effective leadership, noting her consultative yet decisive approach to decision-making; her strategic approach to the budget, including the establishment of clear priorities and a commitment to effectively communicating the details of the campus budget model to faculty and staff; and her active promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the college,” said Rosa Milagros Santos, acting executive vice provost for academic affairs at the Urbana campus.
“It is a great privilege to serve the College of Media community for another term as dean,” said Sulkin. “I am eager to work with our talented and dedicated faculty, staff, students, and alumni to build on the exciting momentum we have created together over the past five years. As we begin our planning for our centennial celebration in 2027, it is clear that there is a bright future ahead for the College of Media.”
The evaluation committee highlighted several key accomplishments under Sulkin’s leadership, including the elevation of the College of Media’s profile on campus, success in advancement—notably the biggest gift in College of Media history with the establishment of the Richard and Leslie Frank Center for Leadership and Innovation in Media, plus the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies—and substantial upgrades to technology and infrastructure to support research, teaching, and learning.
“I am confident she will build upon this momentum and continue to advance the College of Media as a strong leader,” Santos added.
Sulkin joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in 2002, after earning her PhD in political science from the University of Washington. She formerly served as the College of Media’s interim executive associate dean and has held administrative positions in the Department of Political Science, including as associate head for undergraduate programs and director of graduate studies. She has been a fellow of the Big 10 Academic Alliance Academic Leadership Program and the University of Illinois President’s Executive Leadership Program. She is the recipient of multiple awards for excellence in teaching and is the author or coauthor of numerous articles and three books on legislative behavior, communication, and representation.
When it comes to career accomplishments, Jim Schlueter (BS ’80, journalism) could name a few, but none are quite as important to him as his ability to build up others.
It’s an honorable trait Schlueter has carried with him throughout his life—as an undergraduate student at Illinois, during his 33-year career in corporate communications, and more recently, as a very generous and passionate alum.
“If I think about accomplishments, really, it’s about helping people develop and grow and watching what they do,” Schlueter said.
Thanks to Schlueter’s contributions to the college, as well as his notable career achievements, the college’s leadership team agreed no one was more deserving of the 2023 College of Media Distinguished Alumni Award.
“Jim Schlueter has made many investments in the College of Media to benefit students now and in the future,” said Dean Tracy Sulkin. “We are so grateful for his engagement and for his desire to help make Illinois the number one destination for those who want to be part of the dynamic field of media.”
Schlueter is passionate about ensuring students stay ahead with new innovations and changing trends. In 2019, he and his wife, Amy, gave a generous gift to launch the Media Innovation Fund, which supports a wide range of activities that celebrate faculty excellence, faculty and student research, technology advancements, and cutting-edge pedagogy.
Schlueter said he felt humbled and honored when he learned of his nomination.
“I don’t do what I do to get awards, but to be recognized is a very, very special feeling because of [how I] feel about the University and the College of Media, the students, and the folks who have come before me and after me,” he said.
Schlueter, who grew up in rural Edwardsville, Illinois, and had always loved writing and sports, came to Illinois with a plan to study journalism. He joined the staff at The Daily Illini his sophomore year, covering women’s rugby, women’s cross-country, and men’s track. He became an executive reporter in sports his senior year covering football and basketball, and worked as a local stringer for the Associated Press.
“As much as I was looking forward to [attending the University of Illinois] … it was even better than I thought,” he said. “I met all my best friends there, I got to do experiences and things I couldn’t believe I was able to do, and I really stretched and learned a lot from my fellow students.”
After graduation, Schlueter worked as a reporter at a few newspapers, mostly covering the sports beat, and eventually earned his MBA in marketing from SIU-Edwardsville. In 1985, he went to work for an employee newspaper at McDonnell Douglas, an aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor that eventually merged with Boeing in the late ’90s.
Schlueter said his career offered him a variety of opportunities that allowed him to support different fields within the aircraft industry including international communications, military products, and commercial airplanes. He spent the last six years of his career in Boeing’s corporate office in Chicago as the director of technology communications, finally retiring in 2018.
“I got to do a lot of things at an amazing company, so many different things that I can’t believe, from military programs and products to the space programs. I even worked a few shuttle launches, which is incredible,” he said.
Schlueter gives credit to his experience at Illinois, learning from some of the best professors alongside some of the brightest students, as well as his time at The Daily Illini for helping to shape his future career endeavors. He expressed gratitude for the journalism skills he gained that contributed to his success as a corporate communicator.
“When you’re a communications person at a company like Boeing, it behooves you to be able to write like a journalist writes and edit and dive into complicated questions and issues that really get to the heart of the matter,” he said.
Schlueter currently resides in Iowa with his wife, and they also have an apartment in Champaign. As lifelong season ticket holders, they come back to campus often for football and basketball games, and to visit the college for alumni commitments and events. Schlueter has served on the College of Media Alumni Leadership Council for more than a decade, sharing his professional insights and resources with faculty, staff, and students.
“It’s always been part and parcel of me, I guess, to stay connected and involved,” Schlueter said. “That feeling of being part of something bigger than yourself, and that you belong amongst it, is a big deal to me.”
In addition to kickstarting the Media Innovation Fund, a $50,000 donation from the Schlueters helped build the Media Technology Center, which offers a variety of technology and resources that students can check out or access online. The center opened in Fall 2022.
The couple also created the Schlueter Family Endowed Fund for Internships in Journalism to support students seeking real-world experience. Schlueter hopes their contributions will make a difference for Media students by enriching their education and preparing them to become future leaders in their field.
“I want Illinois to be on the forefront of the people who are coming up with the new ideas, the folks who are going to figure out how to do journalism for this century,” he said. “It’s going to be the students. They’re going to be the ones who figure it out.”
The Institute of Communications Research sponsored a two-day colloquium on Thursday, April 27, and Friday, April 28, 2023, to revisit and reconsider James Carey’s impact on the field of communication and media studies, and to highlight the recent launch of the James Carey Faculty Fellowship at the University of Illinois.
Unfortunately, due to technical glitches, not everyone’s presentation from April 27 was available. Below are the recordings from Professor Emeritus John Nerone and Professor Emeritus Clifford Christians:
James Carey has had a profound impact on communication and media studies, and in shaping the direction of communication and media studies at the University of Illinois—as a professor, mentor, Dean of the College of Communications (now the College of Media), and Director of the Institute of Communications Research. He was, and remains, globally recognized for his wide-ranging contributions and interventions, including as an advocate for interdisciplinary studies of media and communications, as a historian of media, through his perspectives about communication, information, and media studies and their history, through his interests in the relation between communication studies, media studies, and cultural studies, through his attention to the technologies of communication and information, through his engagement with theories and histories of journalism, and as a contributor to theories and histories about the role of media in democratic forms of citizenship.
Jill Wine-Banks (BS ’64, journalism), MSNBC legal analyst, author, and podcast co-host, is excited to return to the University of Illinois to serve as the alumni speaker at the College of Media Convocation ceremony on Sunday, May 14—marking her first visit back to campus in 44 years.
“Obviously the University has changed a good deal since 1979 and so I’m very much looking forward to seeing the physical campus, walking around to see what’s happened to my sorority house, to the library, Kam’s, and Greg Hall, of course,” Wine-Banks said. “But mostly I remember my friends and professors.”
She also plans to visit Krannert Center for the Performing Arts as well as the Alma Mater statue and the Quad, just a few of the many landmarks that come to mind when she recalls her time on campus.
“Those are the kind of things that I think of, but I also think of all the doors that the University opened for me,” Wine-Banks said. “If it hadn’t been for a good education at UIUC, I wouldn’t have gotten into an Ivy League law school, I wouldn’t have become a journalist now, or a lawyer before that. I’m grateful for the education I got.”
Wine-Banks says after graduation, gender discrimination was prevalent in journalism, and she was only offered jobs to write for the “women’s pages,” so she decided to attend the prestigious Columbia Law School in New York to improve her chances of being considered for more hard news opportunities.
“I ended up in law school to get a better job in journalism, and it worked 50 years later,” she said.
Wine-Banks started her notable law career as the first woman to serve as an organized crime prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. Less than five years later, she was named one of the three Assistant Watergate Special Prosecutors, and the only woman, for the obstruction of justice trial against President Nixon’s top aides. She became a major player in the Watergate tapes hearing that preceded the trial, cross-examining Rose Mary Woods, President Nixon’s secretary, about the 18 ½-minute gap in a key White House recording.
She also had a couple of female role models who inspired her, including an early pioneer in television journalism, Nancy Hanschman Dickerson, whom she heard speak during her freshman year at the University of Illinois. A couple of years later Wine-Banks represented her sorority Iota Alpha Pi at a national convention in New York and visited the United Nations where she saw UN correspondent Pauline Frederick. Seeing these two women excelling in their exciting careers had a big impact on Wine-Banks.
“I’d have to say that both of those women influenced me, as did [Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and New York Times columnist] Anthony Lewis,” she said.
Her legal career also includes service as the first female General Counsel of the U.S. Army where she helped integrate women into the Regulate Army by eliminating the Women’s Army Corps, and into West Point; as the first Solicitor General of Illinois where she argued in the U.S. Supreme Court and first female Deputy Attorney General; and as the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the American Bar Association, the only woman to have held that position.
In addition to her post at MSNBC, Wine-Banks is also co-host of two Politicon podcasts: #SistersInLaw with three other MSNBC contributors discussing the hottest legal issues of the week, and iGen Politics with a 21-year-old college junior bringing an intergenerational approach to political issues, interviewing leading politicians, cabinet officers, activists, and journalists.
She describes her podcast iGen Politics as a dream come true because “anybody who I can think of [to interview] I can call, and they say yes.” Some of her most memorable interviewees include former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof, along with numerous senators and Congress members.
Wine-Banks is also the author of a memoir, The Watergate Girl, that was optioned by Katie Holmes to become a movie, and is beginning work on a second book that looks at the Trump administration through her pins, a tradition with its own hashtag: #JillsPins.
“I have always loved brooches as accessories. You will see in my high school yearbook, I’m wearing a pin. If you look carefully at the Watergate pictures [taken during the trial], I’m wearing pins,” Wine-Banks said.
During her first appearance on MSNBC to discuss an op-ed piece she wrote, she donned a pin of an eagle holding a shield.
Viewers went to Twitter, which was new to her at the time, to ask about the pin and Wine-Banks realized simply wearing the pin had the power to send a message. Now she finds pins at flea markets, antique shows, Etsy, and frequently receives them as gifts from her followers.
For the Media convocation ceremony, Wine-Banks has already set aside an “Illinois” pin to wear.
Producer Lawrence Bender (‘Pulp Fiction’) brings ‘Fresh’ perspective to Ebertfest, along with Michael Morris with ‘To Leslie,’ and Shoah collaboration ‘My Name Is Sara’
Festival closes with empathic film ‘Forrest Gump’ with guest Mykelti Williamson
Roger Ebert’s Film Festival is pleased to announce the full lineup of films and accompanying filmmakers who will participate in the post-screening discussions at the 23rd annual event, which runs April 19-22 at the Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign.
As this year marks the 10th anniversary of Roger Ebert’s death, the program reflects his guiding principle of empathy, said Chaz Ebert, who co-founded and hosts Ebertfest.
“In Roger’s memory, we will gather together in what Roger has called the temple of cinema to reaffirm our connections to each other,” said Chaz Ebert.
The program for Ebertfest 2023, “Empathy at the Movies,” includes 11 films, two shorts, 20+ guests, and two musical performances:
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19
6:30 P.M. NINE DAYS (2020) This ultra-original American fantasy drama Nine Days considers the meaning of life as potential souls audition for the chance to be born. In the RogerEbert.com review, the film was praised for centering questions around “the eternal issues of the human condition: What does it mean to be alive? How do we appreciate life while we are here? Is it even possible?” The film won the Sundance Film Festival’s Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award in the U.S. Dramatic competition.
Guests
Director Edson Oda After a series of award-winning short films and music videos, Japanese Brazilian writer and director Edson Oda made his film directorial debut with Nine Days. Based in Los Angeles, Oda is a BAFTA Breakthrough alum, a Sundance Screenwriters Lab alum, and a Latin Grammy-nominated director for best music video.
Producer Jason Michael Berman President of Mandalay Pictures, Jason Michael Berman has produced feature films that have premiered at Cannes Film Festival, SXSW, Sundance Film Festival, and others. His latest film, Air, about Michael Jordan’s partnership with Nike, will be released in April. He also helped to develop the Sundance Institute’s film financing program called Catalyst. An alum of University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, he is now an adjunct professor there.
THURSDAY, APRIL 20
9:30 A.M. TOKYO STORY (1953) This year’s selection from the Ebertfest audience choice movie poll is Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story. In Roger Ebert’s review of the film—which he called “one of the greatest films of all time”—he wrote, “Ozu is not only a great director but a great teacher, and after you know his films, a friend. With no other director do I feel affection for every single shot. … It ennobles the cinema. It says, yes, a movie can help us make small steps against our imperfections.”
2:00 P.M. THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920) Continuing Ebertfest’s tradition of hosting a live music performance with a silent film, the Anvil Orchestra will accompany the German Expressionist silent horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, directed by Robert Wiene. It depicts the story of an insane hypnotist who uses a somnambulist (a sleepwalker) to commit crimes.
Guest
The Anvil Orchestra Fondly named after a misspoken introduction by Roger Ebert at the Alloy Orchestra’s first Ebertfest appearance, the Anvil Orchestra is comprised of two-thirds of the Alloy Orchestra, which has since disbanded, with original member Terry Donahue and longtime member Roger Clark Miller. The multi-instrumentalists play an unusual combination of found percussion and state-of-the-art electronics. Donahue plays junk percussion, accordion, musical saw, and banjo. Miller plays synthesizer, and percussion; he also performs with the post-punk band Mission of Burma that he co-founded in 1979.
4:00 P.M. MY NAME IS SARA (2019) Sponsored by the Alliance for Inclusion and Respect In this prize-winning docudrama, My Name Is Sara gives viewers a look into the real life of a 13-year-old Polish Jew named Sara Góralnik who flees Poland after her parents were killed by Nazis at the outset of the Holocaust. Passing as an Orthodox Christian, Sara gets hired as a nanny by a Ukrainian farmer and his wife, and must endure grueling work throughout the war all while trying to protect her true identity and discovering her employers have dark secrets of their own.
Guests
Executive Producer Mickey Shapiro Mickey Shapiro, the eldest son of Holocaust survivors Sara Góralnik Shapiro and Asa Shapiro, escaped to the U.S. by boat with his parents in 1949, at nearly two years old. Shapiro is owner and principal of M. Shapiro Real Estate Group, one of the nation’s largest property management companies. He produced My Name Is Sara in association with the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation: The Institute for Visual History and Education, founded by Steven Spielberg to videotape and preserve interviews with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust.
Shapiro is a longtime member of the USC Shoah Foundation Board of Councilors Executive Committee and recently established the Mickey Shapiro Endowed Chair in Holocaust Education. He was previously appointed by President George W. Bush to be a council member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and is a former director of the Michigan Holocaust Memorial Center.
Director Steven Oritt Steven Oritt, who got his start directing music videos for bands such as the Foo Fighters and OneRepublic, focuses on documentary and true-life, character-driven stories, including American Native and Accidental Climber.My Name Is Sara is Oritt’s directorial debut of a feature film.
9:00 P.M. AMERICAN FOLK (2017) American Folk follows Elliott and Joni, both folk musicians, on a road trip from Los Angeles to New York City in the days following 9/11. Both folk singers in real life, Joe Purdy and Amber Rubarth portray the two strangers who forge a bond over several days through their love of music, encounters with memorable people, and a shared mission to “bring back the folk.”
Guests
Director David Heinz For the last decade, David Heinz has been working in cutting rooms on both independent and studio pictures alike. He has edited Adult World with John Cusack, which was released theatrically by IFC in 2014. In 2011 he served as the additional editor of This Means War for Fox as well as several other recent independent features. Heinz recently contributed as the visual effects editor to The Jungle Book, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and Live Free or Die Hard, to name a few. American Folk marks his feature directorial debut.
Singer/Actress Amber Rubarth Amber Rubarth is an award-winning singer-songwriter who has toured the world alongside such artists as Emmylou Harris, Richie Havens, and Ralph Stanley. A winner of the prestigious NPR’s Mountain Stage New Song Contest, Rubarth’s album Wildflowers in the Graveyard features a song heavily featured in the film. American Folk also marks Rubarth’s big screen debut.
FRIDAY, APRIL 21
10:00 A.M. TO LESLIE (2022) In To Leslie, a drama inspired by true events, Andrea Riseborough plays Leslie, a struggling single mom living in Texas who wins the lottery only to waste it all on alcohol and drugs, much to the dismay of friends and family, including her only son. Years later, Leslie attempts to get her life back on track but the path to redemption may be more difficult than she can handle. For her portrayal of Leslie, Riseborough was nominated for Best Actress at this year’s Academy Awards.
Guest
Director Michael Morris With recent credits as executive producer of the final season of Better Call Saul, Michael Morris’s directorial feature film debut To Leslie was selected by the National Board of Review as one of the top 10 independent films of 2022. His roots in theatre began as director of the Old Vic in London. In the new Apple TV+ series Extrapolations, he directs the finale episode.
2:30 P.M. MARIAN ANDERSON: THE WHOLE WORLD IN HER HANDS (2022) Directed by Peabody and Emmy Award-winner Rita Coburn, Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands explores the life of the African American singer and civil rights pioneer, who died in 1993 at the age of 96. The film highlights Anderson’s career, art, and legacy as a Black classical singer with a breathtaking and rare vocal range as well as her work to further civil rights. The film allows viewers to hear Anderson’s own voice and point of view through archival interview recordings, photographs, and personal correspondence with family and friends, including Martin Luther King Jr., Josephine Baker, and Langston Hughes.
Guests
Director Rita Coburn Rita Coburn is the co-director/co-producer of Peabody Award-winning Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, the first feature documentary on Maya Angelou, which screened at Ebertfest 2019. Coburn’s work has also earned three Emmys for the documentaries Curators of Culture, Remembering 47th Street, and African Roots American Soil. Coburn is the owner of RCW Media Productions, Inc., a multi-media production company.
Producer Brenda Robinson Brenda Robinson, producer and entertainment attorney, is involved with numerous film, television, and music projects, most recently as a financier on the Academy Award-winning documentary Icarus as well as Won’t You Be My Neighbor and Step. Robinson is currently head of film finance and inclusion strategies for HiddenLight Productions, a global studio founded by Hillary Clinton, Sam Branson, and Chelsea Clinton. She is also a member of Impact Partners, which is dedicated to funding independent documentaries that focus on social issues.
Viveca Richards Following the screening will be a live performance by Viveca Richards, an opera soprano student from the University of Illinois Lyric Theatre.
7:30 P.M. DEREK DELGAUDIO’S IN & OF ITSELF (2020) This biography explores identity and illusion while the storyteller and magician Derek DelGaudio attempts to answer, “Who am I?” In & Of Itself originated as a play written and performed by DelGaudio and directed by Frank Oz, which ran Off-Broadway for 72 weeks.
Guests
Director Frank Oz Emmy Award-winning Frank Oz is known for creating and performing many beloved characters on The Muppet Show (Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal) and Sesame Street (Cookie Monster, Bert, Grover), as well as bringing to life Yoda in the Star Wars series. He has directed numerous films over the past four decades, including The Muppets Take Manhattan, Little Shop of Horrors, What About Bob?, and The Stepford Wives.
Derek DelGaudio An acclaimed and accomplished writer, performer, and magician, Derek DelGaudio wrote and co-starred in the avant-garde magic theater show Nothing to Hide, directed by Neil Patrick Harris, a few years before In & Of Itself began its Off-Broadway run. DelGaudio became the Artist in Residence for Walt Disney Imagineering in 2014 and was named Magician of the Year in 2016 from the Academy of Magical Arts. His memoir, Amoralman: A True Story and Other Lies, was published in 2021.
Producer Vanessa Lauren Vanessa Lauren is a producer of a diverse range of arts and entertainment projects. She produced both the Off-Broadway show and the film In & Of Itself. Her previous projects include Low in the Water, MST3K, Super Troopers 2, and Zappa.
Producer Jake Friedman Jake Friedman has produced In & Of Itself and was executive producer of the TV special Neal Brennan: Blocks.
Janet Pierson Janet Pierson, director emeritus of SXSW Film Festival, has spent the last 45 years of her career supporting independent films and filmmakers in various capacities. Pierson was named to The Guardian’s Film Power 100 list in 2010 and the Indiewire Influencers in 2013. A regular panelist at film festivals, Pierson is a member of the advisory board for the Austin Film Society, founded by filmmaker Richard Linklater, and the University of Texas Press Advisory Board.
SATURDAY, APRIL 22
9:00 A.M. [SHORT FILM PROGRAM] CLUB ALLI (2020) In just under nine minutes, brothers Julien and Justen Turner, who have made nearly a dozen short films, direct a sci-fi drama about America and the ever-present socio-economic divide in Club Alli, which won the CU International Film Festival. The duo, who have been featured on CNN and in the New York Times, say they wrote the short “to play around with the mirage of a free society. Our goal is to change the way that people think.”
Guests
Writers/Directors Justen and Julien Turner Filmmaker brothers Justen and Julien Turner, who run Dreadhead Films, are the youngest filmmakers to have been commissioned to produce a short film for Sesame Street for its 2018-19 season, at ages 15 and 19. They have produced numerous short films that have been honored at national film festivals.
Max Libman Max Libman is the teenage founder and director of the CU International Film Festival that debuted in October in Urbana and featured eight short films, one of which was produced by the Turner brothers. In his young career, Libman has also been honored for his screenwriting.
TEAM DREAM (2022) Audience members will be reminded it’s never too late to make a dream come true in the short documentary film Team Dream. Luchina Fisher directs this 17-minute film, which features two female friends, Ann and Madeline, preparing to swim in the National Senior Games held in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The two women also discuss what it was like growing up in Chicago during times of segregation and their experience after joining Team Dream, an organization that trains women of color in swimming, biking, and triathlons.
Guests
Director Luchina Fisher Luchina Fisher, director, writer, and producer of the short documentary Team Dream, is an award-winning filmmaker and journalist who works at the intersection of race, gender, and identity. Team Dream, executive produced by Queen Latifah, won the Audience Choice Award at the 2022 Chicago International Film Festival and aired on BET on March 24.
Madeline Murphy Rabb Madeline Murphy Rabb is president of Murphy Rabb, Inc., a fine arts advisory firm she founded in Chicago in 1992. She is nationally renowned for her expertise in identifying and showcasing artwork created by African American artists, both emerging and established. Rabb has provided guidance to major art collectors, corporations, and institutions across the nation.
10:30 A.M. FRESH (1994) Samuel L. Jackson stars in the Sundance Film Festival Winner Fresh, an urban crime thriller Roger Ebert described as “a story of depth and power, in which the dangerous streets are seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old who reacts with the objectivity he has learned from chess, and the anger taught to him by his life.” Fresh (Sean Nelson), a young drug runner living in New York, is fed up with the violence and death he encounters in his daily life. Using chess lessons he learned from his alcoholic father, played by Jackson, Fresh devises a plan to free himself and his drug-addicted sister from the corrupt system.
Guest
Producer Lawrence Bender Lawrence Bender has produced well-known films over the past 30 years, many award-nominated, from Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, the Kill Bill series, and Inglourious Basterds, to the Academy Award-winning documentary on climate change An Inconvenient Truth and Good Will Hunting.
3:00 P.M. WINGS OF DESIRE (1987) The German cinematic masterpiece Wings of Desire made director Wim Wenders’s name synonymous with film art. “You’re seduced into the spell of this movie,” wrote Roger Ebert in his original review. The film, which was shot in black and white, and color, features Bruno Ganz as Damiel, an angel who is willing to give up his perch high over Berlin, his ability to hear thoughts, as well as his immortality to return to Earth after falling in love with a trapeze artist. Created shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ebert wrote that “the film is like music or a landscape: It clears a space in my mind, and in that space I can consider questions. Some of them are asked in the film: ‘Why am I me and why not you? Why am I here and why not there? When did time begin and where does space end?’”
Guest
Michael Barker Michael Barker, co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics with Tom Bernard, has distributed, and often produced, some of the finest independent movies over the past 40 years. Barker’s films have received nearly 200 Academy Award nominations and more than 40 wins, including several for Best Picture, Best Documentary Feature, and Best Foreign Language Film. He and his colleagues have also restored and theatrically reissued some of the great films of the past. In 2022, Barker and Bernard received the Game Changer Award from the Zurich Film Festival, in recognition of their services to film culture.
8:30 P.M. FORREST GUMP (1994) Roger Ebert described Forrest Gump, the six-time Oscar winning comedy drama starring Tom Hanks, as a “magical movie.” Ebert wrote, “I’ve never met anyone like Forrest Gump in a movie before, and for that matter I’ve never seen a movie quite like Forrest Gump.” The film follows the life of the slow-witted but good-natured Gump, from a young boy in the 1950s with braces on his legs to a father in the 1980s. Although born with a low IQ, Gump’s mental impairments don’t prevent him from being a part of extraordinary moments in history or falling in love and eventually marrying his childhood sweetheart.
Guest
Actor Mykelti Williamson In addition to playing the memorable shrimp-loving character “Bubba” in the Academy Award-winning Forrest Gump, actor Mykelti Williamson has also starred in the Academy Award-nominated film Fences and Con Air, as well as the TV series Law & Order: Organized Crime and Chicago P.D., among other movies and TV shows. He has also recently directed episodes of Sweet Magnolias, Chicago Med, and Chicago P.D.
Other guests throughout Ebertfest include film critics:
Nick Allen
Matt Fagerholm
Al Lerner
Linda Lerner
Nell Minow
Michael Phillips
Brian Tallerico
Matt Zoller-Seitz
Please note that filmmaker guest appearances are subject to change, which may include adding a surprise guest to the program.
Passes to see all films with reserved seating are available to purchase online or at the Virginia Theatre box office, 203 W. Park Ave., Champaign, 217-356-9063. Individual movie tickets will go on sale on April 3.
Roger Ebert was a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic, University of Illinois journalism alumnus, and Urbana native. Ebertfest is sponsored by the University of Illinois College of Media and Chaz Ebert.
Anyone interested in supporting the event as a festival sponsor may contact Molly Cornyn, the festival’s project coordinator, at mcornyn2@illinois.edu.
