Each year, the University of Illinois, College of Media at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois honors the legacy of my late husband, Roger Ebert, an alumnus, by awarding exceptionally promising students with the designation of the Roger Ebert Fellows. This is the second year of the scholarship program, advised by Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Phillips, who has been an exceptional mentor to them. They participate in a program for a year that consists of observing, writing, screening films, attending classes or conducting interviews, or other activities that serve to strengthen attributes like empathy, kindness and/or compassion in their fields of study.
Last weekend, the 2016-17 Felllows, Joseph Longo, Mariah Schaefer and Jason Yue, attended their first-ever film festival. Their reports appeared in the Daily Illini and on the Illini website. Here is a video report produced by Yue.
