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Monday, May 3, 2010

THE 51st SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
A San Francisco Night For Roger Ebert

 
Pre-eminent film critic Roger Ebert applauds on stage at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on Saturday evening during "Roger Ebert & Friends", an awards night presentation as part of the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival.   
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com

By Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW 
Monday, May 3, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - May 1 

There was more applause than thumbs up, but everyone was in agreement: it was Roger Ebert's stage, and the city of San Francisco was just visiting.

The pre-eminent film critic was honored tonight at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival at the famed Castro Theater.  There the Chicago-based film critic was honored with the Mel Novikoff Award as part of the special night dubbed "Roger Ebert & Friends".  Chaz Ebert joined her husband on stage, where he also received a proclamation issued by San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom declaring May 1 Roger Ebert Day in the City.

An emotional night was punctuated by San Francisco-based director Philip Kaufman's recounting of a story involving his late wife Rose, who passed away last year.  Overcome with tears as he sat reading from some notes, Mr. Kaufman stated that "I thought this was going to be a lot easier than it is." 

Mr. Ebert gripped Mr. Kaufman's hand as the filmmaker paused, trying to regain his composure to finish a story about his wife, with whom he had quarreled vociferously one night.

Three other filmmakers joined Mr. Kaufman in saluting Roger Ebert; Bay Area-based Terry Zwigoff ("Bad Santa", "Crumb", "Ghost World"), documentarian Errol Morris ("Thin Blue Line", "Fog Of War", "Standard Operating Procedure") and Jason Reitman ("Thank You For Smoking", "Juno", "Up In The Air").  Each paid tribute to Mr. Ebert, who often added comedy to the proceedings with his gestures and wide-eyed expressions and smiles before a packed house of almost 1800 moviegoers.

Mr. Zwigoff recalled a story about the reactions to one of his early films, confessing that the reactions were so poor he had to

Of Mr. Ebert, Mr. Morris said, "I owe him an enormous debt of gratitude.  What you hope for when you make a film is that someone out there will appreciate it or perhaps see it in an entirely new light."

The esteemed film critic said

After the roughly hour-long set of speeches and awards bestowed upon the man you started as a youngster at the Chicago Sun-Times in the mid-1960s, the 2009 film "Julia", starring Tilda Swinton in the title role, was screened for the audience.  The film, directed by Erick Zonca, was the film critic's choice, featuring what he hailed as 2009's best lead performance by an actress.









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Read more movie reviews and stories from Omar here.

Read Omar's "Far-Flung Correspondent" reports for America's pre-eminent Film Critic Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times - here



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