By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

ROGER EBERT RECEIVES “GOLDEN CIUPAGA” AWARD FROM THE POLISH FILM FESTIVAL IN AMERICA

Posted Saturday, November 20th, 2010 - 2 Comments »
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Roger Ebert, one of the most respected and widely-read film critics in the world, is the recipient of the 2010 Golden Ciupaga Award, for his contribution in promoting European cinema in the United States, including works by Polish filmmakers. This prestigious prize is being presented by the Polish Film Festival in America, which hosts the largest showcase of Polish cinema beyond Poland and is one of the most extensive annual programs of European film in North America.

Regarded as the most powerful and popular film critic in America today, Roger Ebert was born in Urbana, Illinois, in 1942. Ebert received his degree from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He then attended the Universities of Cape Town and Chicago. He started working for the Chicago Sun-Times in September of 1966, and has been their film critic since 1967. Roger is best known for his film reviews in the Sun-Times and online through rogerebert.com, and for his television programs, “Sneak Previews,” “At the Movies” and “Siskel & Ebert and The Movies,” all of which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel of The Chicago Tribune. After Siskel’s death in 1999, Ebert teamed with Richard Roeper for “Ebert and Roeper & the Movies.” Although his name remained in the title, Ebert did not appear on the show after mid-2006, when he suffered surgical complications which left him unable to speak.

Ebert’s movie reviews are syndicated to more than 200 newspapers worldwide and his website attracts 100 million visits a year from around the globe. He has written more than 20 books, including his famous annual movie yearbook which is a collection of his reviews of the past year. In 1994 he published “Great Movies” which has since continued with “Great Movies II” and now “Great Movies III.” These books contain reviews of movies he deems important for people to see. He also recently published “Scorsese by Ebert.”

In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize. He has received honorary degrees from the University of Colorado, the AFI Conservatory and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2005, Ebert was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the first professional film critic to be so honored. In 2009, he was made an honorary life member of the Directors Guild of America. More recently, he was honored as the 2010 Webby Person of the Year, which is the leading international award honoring excellence on the internet.

In 1999, Ebert established the “Overlooked Film Festival” at his alma mater, the University of Illinois. Now called “Roger Ebert’s Film Festival” or “Ebertfest,” it just celebrated its 13th anniversary. The festival brings filmmakers from all over the world to Urbana-Champaign to share their films. Roger Ebert’s contribution to the appreciation of European film in America is unquestioned. While teaching at the University of Chicago Extension Courses, he regularly featured a semester dedicated to a particular director, including Krzysztof Kieslowski, Andrzej Wajda and was an early champion of Krzysztof Zanussi. Ebert considers “Decalogue” as one of the most important films in the history of cinema. From the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, he wrote that Jerzy Hoffman’s “With Fire and Sword,” shown at the Festival’s Marketplace, was one of the few interesting films shown there.

Ebert has described his critical approach of films as “relative, not absolute.” He reviews a film for what he feels will be its prospective audience, yet always with at least some consideration as to its value as a whole.

For many years, Roger Ebert has been supported by his wife Chaz, currently the Executive Producer of the upcoming “Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies,” which is set to air in January 2011, on public television stations nationwide. Ebert is an extraordinary example of a man whose passion for films has overcome even his serious health limitations.

The Polish Film Festival in American is proud to honor Roger Ebert with its “Golden Ciupaga Award” for his long-standing promotion of European films in America, and Polish films in particular.

Roger Ebert will receive the award in person at the Award Closing Night Ceremony on Saturday, November 20th, of the 22nd annual Polish Film Festival in America, at Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 (9180 Golf Rd., Niles). Following the presentation, he will be available to sign his new books, “Great Movies III,” and “Roger Ebert’s Movie Yearbook 2011.”

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Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “ROGER EBERT RECEIVES “GOLDEN CIUPAGA” AWARD FROM THE POLISH FILM FESTIVAL IN AMERICA”

  1. Harland Marusak says:
    November 22, 2010 at 12:22 pm

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  2. Yong Cordeiro says:
    February 23, 2011 at 4:28 am

    Great read. Thank you for sharing.
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon