A look at Ebertfest's past

In Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit (2007), an Egyptian police orchestra becomes stranded in the wrong Israeli town on the way to a performance at an Arab cultural center. The cross-cultural barriers of race, religion, language and sex pile up to make for a slew of awkward moments that are often both hilarious and poignant. The interlocking sections of Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) add up to an aesthetically bold biopic of Yukio Mishima, a Japanese writer plagued with the dual obsessions of honor and death. Eiko Ishioka’s production designs are breathtaking. Like this year’s The Fall, Mishima is a feast for the eyes.

Ebertfest 2007

In his late 20s, Ebert worked on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) alongside X-rated auteur Russ Meyer, “laughing maniacally from time to time” while writing this cult classic spoof of Valley of the Dolls (1967). “Whatever its faults or virtues,” Ebert wrote, “BVD is an original — a satire of Hollywood conventions, genres, situations, dialogue, characters and success formulas.”

Ebertfest 2006

Love Slumdog Millionaire? Check out Millions (2004), another Danny Boyle film sure to give you the warm-and-fuzzies. A duffel bag of stolen British pounds literally falls out of the sky and lands on a boy’s cardboard playhouse. Unlike the greedy little turd in Blank Check (1995), this kid strives to help others with his fortune.

Ebertfest 2005

If you haven’t seen Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971), an indie classic that launched the Blaxploitation movement, rent it now. Then after that, see Baadasssss! (2004), Mario Van Peebles’ take on the storied production of his father’s notorious masterpiece. The run-ins with creditors and police make it an intriguing historical account, which Van Peebles enhances with psychedelic editing.

Ebertfest 2004

Something odd is afoot in Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s The Son (2002). Olivier, a Belgian carpenter, rejects a woman’s request to let a new boy become his apprentice. Yet he begins stalking them for reasons unexplained. The brothers’ subtle direction tells nothing and everything at the same time. “I grew during this film,” Ebert wrote. “It taught me things about the cinema I did not know.”

Ebertfest 2003

Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool (1969) analyzes the social climate surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Robert Forster plays a TV cameraman who covers the government and the protesters’ mutual suspicion and violence toward each other. The deft mix of fiction and documentary footage establishes this as one of the great countercultural films of the late 1960s.

Ebertfest 2002