- Join Us for the Inaugural FECK Awards Gala This Saturday, April 4th (April 2, 2026)
In this world seemingly full of turmoil, do you wish you could meet people who are unusually Forgiving, Empathetic, Empathetic, Compassionate and Kind? Then join us for The Inaugural FECK Awards this Saturday, April 4th, at the Ritz Carlton Water Tower Place, Chicago. We are celebrating individuals and/or organizations who embody those transformative values. Chosen from hundreds of nominations by a philanthropic Panel of Judges after a national search, I am thrilled to be hosting the evening alongside veteran news anchor Robin Robinson.
Joining me as presenters are actors Nicholas and Pamela Guest; Fulbright scholar Douglas Arnell Williams, and Josibiah Smith, my compassionate son. Live musical performances will be delivered throughout the evening by award-winning international vocalists Tammy McCann and Calvin Bridges.
The FECK Awards were inspired by the principles outlined in my book It’s Time to Give a FECK: Elevating Humanity Through Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion, and Kindness. These accolades are more than a typical award; they are a call to action, honoring everyday heroes and leaders whose actions help build a more humane, understanding, and compassionate world.
Congratulations to our 2026 winners, starting with Azim Khamisa and the Tariq Khamisa Foundation from San Diego, California, who embody the transformative value of FORGIVENESS. After his son Tariq was tragically killed in 1995 during a gang initiation robbery, Azim made the extraordinary choice to forgive the teenage offender responsible. Instead of allowing grief to turn into hatred, Azim partnered with the young man’s grandfather, Ples Felix, to found the Tariq Khamisa Foundation, dedicated to stopping youth violence. For more than three decades, the organization has reached more than two million young people through programs that promote accountability, forgiveness, and nonviolence.
Our recipient whose story exudes the value of EMPATHY, is Melvin Parson from Ypsilanti, Michigan. He founded the We the People Growers Association and We the People Opportunity Farm, which have transformed lives through urban agriculture and second-chance employment. After experiencing incarceration, homelessness, and addiction earlier in life, Parson built a program that created dignified jobs and workforce training through soil-changing opportunities, growing and selling fresh farm foods, and creating the Good Soil Café. This helped formerly incarcerated individuals to foster understanding, opportunity, and healing while reducing recidivism. Just as we were about to inform Mr. Parson of his award, we learned that he passed away earlier this month, on March 5th. His work lives on.
Jayera Griffin of Riverdale, Illinois, is this year’s award recipient best representing the principle of COMPASSION. She began serving her community at just 14 years old by organizing free laundry days so students could have clean clothes for school. Now 22 and graduating from Western Illinois University in 2026 with plans to become an elementary school teacher, Griffin continues to lead initiatives that support and uplift her community, including organizing CPR and AED training for young people, collecting clothing for seniors, and organizing school supply drives and holiday programs for neighborhood families.
Last but certainly not least is our winner who embodies KINDNESS, David Ludlow Jr., of South Elgin, Illinois. He was born with Down Syndrome, and now at age 35, demonstrates the profound impact one person’s generosity can have. Each year, he saves his earnings to purchase toys for his local fire district’s Toys for Tots drive. In 2025 alone, he donated nearly 100 toys, inspiring an outpouring of additional donations from the community. At Rising Lights Project, a learning space for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities, Luplow is known for his quiet acts of kindness that inspire a ripple effect in the community.
A huge thank you to our distinguished judges Jane Borton, David Hirsch, Jason Delanee Lee, Yvonne Huff Lee, Mary O’Donohue, Laura Podlesny, Josibiah Smith, Jacqueline Stewart, Christine Swanson, Michael Swanson, Lou Weisbach, and Joyce Winnecke.
I would also like to highlight our Honorable Mentions in each category, starting with Forgiveness: Judge Kathleen Coffey, founder of the Homeless Court at Boston’s Pine Street Inn, in Boston, Massachusetts. Each month for 15 years before retiring in late 2025, Judge Coffey transformed a room at the Pine Street Inn homeless shelter into a courtroom where people experiencing homelessness, facing misdemeanors, nonviolent felonies, or default warrants, could come before her to be heard and have their cases adjudicated, allowing individuals to rebuild self-respect through employment, housing, and other opportunities.
Our Honorable Mentions in the categories of Empathy, Compassion, and Kindness are:
–The Cancer Cartel in Enumclaw, Washington. Founded by three remarkable cancer survivors (Warriors), Kerry Solmonsen, Katy Tinney-Olson, and Shelly Tinney-Miller, this national non-profit was born from their firsthand experience of how wellness and financial considerations can be at odds. In its Mission Statement, it states: “Cancer Cartel provides financial resources to cancer Warriors.” We want anyone in the battle against cancer to be able to focus all of their energy on getting well and not on how much having cancer is costing them. From gas money to groceries, power bills to mortgage payments, we are fighting to tear down financial barriers to wellness. (They depend on grants, strategic partnerships, and donations, which are passed directly to cancer Warriors, and all operating costs are underwritten.)
–Michael Airhart, founder of Chicago’s Taste for the Homeless. Airhart’s nonprofit provides services to help homeless people and those living in shelters become contributing citizens by providing hot meals, clothing, hygiene items, and social services. He said it is a calling for him, as he could not just walk past people in need without helping. His organization has grown with the aid of many kind people who are attracted to his goodness.
–Hector and Diane Corona are the founders of City Kids Camp in Chicago. It is a free summer camp for children from economically disadvantaged communities, allowing them to experience a true outdoor adventure in a peaceful environment. They recognized the healing power of nature, just allowing kids to be kids, away from the cares of the city.
These descriptions are but a thumbnail introduction of what each of the Winners and Honorable Mentions bring to the world. On April 4th, when we celebrate these everyday heroes in person and introduce them to each other, our inaugural honorees will show what it truly means to “give a FECK.” Their stories remind us that each of us has the power to uplift others and help create a kinder and more compassionate world.
Join us for an inspiring evening of storytelling, celebration, and community, honoring these remarkable individuals and the values they represent. Reception begins at 6 pm CT, followed by dinner and the awards show at 6:30 pm CT.
For full event details and to order tickets, visit GiveAFECK.com.
- Full Schedule for Ebertfest 2026 Released and Individual Tickets Now On Sale (April 2, 2026)
Individual tickets for Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, widely known as Ebertfest, are now on sale. The festival’s 27th and final edition, “The Last Dance,” in Champaign, Illinois, will take place Friday, April 17th, and Saturday, April 18th. Presented by Century Law Firm, this milestone year marks a poignant farewell to one of the country’s most beloved film festivals, celebrating a legacy rooted in empathy, storytelling, and the communal power of cinema.
The festival will kick off at 9 am on April 17th with Libby Ewing’s Tribeca prize-winner, “Charliebird,” with its star and writer, Samantha Smart, in attendance. The film will be presented in partnership with the Alliance for Inclusion and Respect, and follows a music therapist who forms an unexpected bond with a young patient, unlocking the buried grief of her past in a journey of connection, loss, and healing.
The festival’s second scheduled screening at 11:25 am will be James Vanderbilt’s acclaimed, all-star ensemble piece, “Nuremberg.” One of Ebertfest’s cherished frequent guests, Sony Pictures Classics Co-Founder and Co-President Michael Barker, will participate in a post-screening Q&A afterward. The film stars Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Leo Woodall, John Slattery, and Mark O’Brien, with Richard E. Grant and Michael Shannon. Set as the Nuremberg trials are about to begin, the film follows a U.S. Army psychiatrist who becomes locked in a gripping psychological confrontation with accused Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring, delivering a tense and timely examination of justice, power, and moral reckoning.
Following a break for lunch will be Luke Boyce and Michael Moreci’s new documentary on Roger Ebert, “The Last Movie Critic,” at 3:30 pm. Through the voices of filmmakers Ebert championed and the words he left behind, it explores how one man’s deep and abiding love for cinema became a gift to audiences everywhere, serving as a celebration of movies, empathy, and the belief that what we watch together can make us more human. Jennifer Shelby served as an Executive Producer on projects, while Chaz Ebert, Nate Kohn, and Brett Hays are among the producers.
One of 2025’s beloved crowd-pleasers, “Bob Trevino Likes It,” will screen at 5:10 pm with its writer/director Tracie Laymon and star French Stewart in attendance. Inspired by a true story, the film follows Lily Trevino (Barbie Ferreira), a young woman navigating abandonment and emotional isolation, who forms an unexpected and transformative friendship with a stranger (John Leguizamo) online.
After a dinner break, Friday will conclude with an 8:50 pm screening of Jordan Peele’s galvanizing modern classic, “Get Out.” Winner of the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, the 2017 film follows Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) as he accompanies his girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) for a weekend visit to meet her parents (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener), only to uncover a series of increasingly disturbing revelations that lead to a shocking and horrifying truth. The film also features memorable turns by Lil Rel Howery, Betty Gabriel, and Caleb Landry Jones.
Moviegoers who catch the first show on April 18th are in for a serious treat: a 9 am screening of Buster Keaton’s 100-year-old uproarious masterpiece, “The General,” with its score performed live by The Anvil Orchestra. One of the most revered comedies of the silent era, the film follows Southern railroad engineer Johnny Gray, who must pursue Union soldiers after his train—and his beloved Annabelle Lee—are taken during the Civil War, leading to a series of inventive and daring comedic set pieces. Renowned organist Dr. Steven Ball will also be bringing his signature live musical interludes between screenings this year.
One of Roger’s favorite filmmakers, Gregory Nava, will return to Ebertfest for a 10:25 pm screening of his marvelous 1995 film, “My Family (Mi Familia).” Starring Jimmy Smits, Esai Morales, Jennifer Lopez, Edward James Olmos, and Constance Marie, the film tells the story of a second-generation Mexican immigrant who narrates his family history, beginning with his father, Jose, traveling from Mexico to Los Angeles, where he meets Maria and starts a family. Each subsequent generation contends with political and social hardships, ranging from illegal deportations in the 1940s to racial tensions and gang conflicts in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet through it all, the family remains strong, bound together by resilience, love, and shared history.
Following a lunch break that will offer festival goers the opportunity to sample Mexican dishes courtesy of Mo’s Burritos, a live theatrical production will take place at 2:30 pm on the Virginia stage. Under the direction of Katlin Schneider, Windy City actors Stephen Winchell and Zack Mast will channel the titular roles in Siskel/Ebert, a hilarious recreation of the critics’ infamous 1987 episode of their groundbreaking show, in which they debated the merits of such titles as “Full Metal Jacket,” “Benji the Hunted,” and “Spaceballs.”
Acting icons John Goodman and Judy Greer will then take the stage at 3:40 pm, along with co-directors Edd Benda and Stephen Helstad, as they present their dark comedy, “Chili Finger,” which earned raves following its recent premiere at SXSW. Shot in and around Ebert’s hometown, the film centers on Greer’s character as she discovers a severed finger in her chili, which prompts her to blackmail a fast-food chain, only to attract dangerous attention. Rounding out the impressive cast are Directed by Sean Astin, Bryan Cranston, and Madeline Wise.
The subsequent dinner break (which is guaranteed to include no severed limbs) will lead to the final film of Ebertfest, a 7:25 pm screening of 1995’s euphoric “The American President,” directed by the late Rob Reiner. Starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening, and written by Aaron Sorkin, the film remains a defining work of modern American cinema, blending idealism, romance, and political discourse with uncommon warmth and intelligence. The screening will serve as a centerpiece of this year’s festival, celebrating Reiner’s enduring influence and his alignment with the thoughtful, audience-centered filmmaking championed by the festival’s late co-founder, Roger Ebert.
“We are especially honored to recognize Rob Reiner this year,” said Chaz Ebert. “I had the pleasure of inviting Rob to Ebertfest last year, and while he wasn’t able to attend at the time, he shared how much he was looking forward to joining us in the future. To now celebrate his extraordinary body of work and his deep commitment to storytelling feels incredibly meaningful. We are also proud to honor Robert Redford for his immeasurable contributions to independent filmmaking; his vision helped create a path for generations of filmmakers to tell bold, personal stories.”
See Scout Tafoya’s video tributes to Rob Reiner and Robert Redford here.
This last installment of Ebertfest is dedicated to the memory of both Reiner and Redford, two towering figures in the film industry whom Roger greatly admired. Of Redford, Roger wrote, “His Sundance Institute is a workshop where veterans work with young directors, writers, and actors, improving films that often get made and praised. No single person has done more for the independent film movement.” A decade prior to helming “Nuremberg,” James Vanderbilt cast Redford in his own 2015 filmmaking debut, “Truth,” in which the actor portrayed “60 Minutes” anchor Dan Rather.
Though Roger’s zero-star review of Reiner’s 1994 film, “North,” garnered bemused attention from the masses, including from the director himself, the critic loved a great number of his pictures, including “The American President.” He began his four-star review of that picture by noting, “It is hard to make a good love story, harder to make a good comedy, and harder still to make an intelligent film about politics. Rob Reiner’s ‘The American President’ cheerfully does all three, and is a great entertainment – one of those films, like ‘Forrest Gump’ or ‘Apollo 13,’ that however briefly unites the audience in a reprise of the American dream.”
The majority of individual seating tickets for Ebertfest 2026 are $20, plus a $3 processing fee. Select titles are $10 plus an additional $2 processing fee. A Reserved 1-Day Festival Pass is available for $75.00 plus a $6.00 processing fee. An Individual Reserved Seating Festival Pass, which includes admission to all films, is $150 plus a $9.00 processing fee per pass.
Ebertfest was founded in 1999 by Roger and Chaz Ebert, with Professor Nate Kohn as Festival Director. Roger Ebert was a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, a University of Illinois journalism alumnus, and an Urbana native. Chaz Ebert is also the author of the indie bestseller It’s Time to Give A FECK: Elevating Humanity through Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion, and Kindness. Ebertfest is hosted by Chaz Ebert and Nate Kohn, the festival director since the very beginning.
To become a supporting Festival Sponsor, please contact Sonia Evans – sonia@ebertdigital.com.
For additional information, please visit https://ebertfest.com/ and follow us on social media:
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- Hulu’s “The Testaments” Returns to Gilead For Another Timely Tale About Privilege and Complicity (April 2, 2026)
They say that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Hulu’s first Margaret Atwood adaptation, the award-winning “The Handmaid’s Tale,” became a cultural phenomenon when it premiered in 2017, its exploration of extreme misogyny, authoritarianism, and the battle over women’s reproductive rights an uncomfortably timely companion to the first Donald Trump administration. The show’s iconic red cloaks and white bonnets became mainstays at protests and demonstrations, and many of its most recognizable sayings (“Under His Eye,” “Blessed be the fruit”) crossed over into mainstream political commentary.
Sure, much of the hype around the show had fizzled by the time it concluded in 2025: six seasons of escalating torture porn with a global pandemic in the middle was a lot for even the most invested viewer to stomach. But it’s hard to overstate what a necessary piece of resistance entertainment its earliest seasons were.
Now, the streamer’s second Atwood series, based on the author’s long-awaited “Handmaid’s” follow-up, “The Testaments,” arrives at a political and cultural moment that bears some uncomfortably striking similarities to the one that greeted its predecessor. A year into a second Trump administration, the politics of both resistance and survival have changed drastically, so it’s only natural that the world of Gilead and its evils would have similarly evolved. But while “The Testaments” may approach its subject matter quite differently—its protagonists are teen girls, there’s a conspicuous lack of visible Handmaids, and much less grisly violence—its themes are no less complex and its story no less necessary.
Like “The Handmaid’s Tale” before it, “The Testaments” is not what anyone would call a particularly strict adaptation of Atwood’s novel. But, while it may play a bit fast and loose with multiple elements of the book’s story, the spirit of the piece is exactly right. Disturbingly relevant and brutal by turns, the series is as incisive and insightful as its predecessor. Here, the monstrousness of Gilead is dressed in the soft silks of privilege and the quiet comfort of ignorance, and resistance is grounded as much in solidarity and friendship as it is rage. The result is an unexpectedly powerful coming-of-age tale that offers a fresh, essential return to a universe many viewers likely thought had nothing new to say.
THE TESTAMENTS – “Daisy” – An incident on a school trip spurs Daisy’s memories of Toronto, revealing her past and a world shattered by violence. (Disney/Russ Martin)
THE TESTAMENTS
While Atwood’s novel picks up 15 years after the events of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” only about four years or so have passed in the world of the TV show. Purges have taken place in the wake of the War of Massachusetts, and much of the history of what happened has been shaped, if not outright rewritten, by those who survived. Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), a key player in much of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” who has, as the show puts it, “been worshipped, vilified, and is now worshipped again,” now runs a school for the daughters of Gilead’s elite. These young women, raised in luxury and advantage, have little real understanding of what life is really like for the female servants in their own households, let alone the women outside their country’s repressive borders.
Aunt Lydia’s school is a sort of authoritarian finishing academy, where young women are sent not to better themselves but to learn how to carry out the various wifely duties expected of them as the future spouses of Gilead’s most highly ranked Commanders. Here, reading isn’t as necessary as embroidery, concepts like sex education are basically nonexistent, and obedience is paramount. The students’ uniforms are color coordinated: Pinks are the youngest girls, Plums are older teens, and Greens are those who’ve become “eligible” and can marry that year. (This transition occurs if and only if a Plum gets her period, which is marked by a public confession and praise ceremony.)
The bulk of the story revolves around Agnes MacKenzie (Chase Infiniti), the pious daughter of a powerful Gilead leader. She’s never wanted for anything and has no experience or awareness of life before or outside of Gilead. On some level, it’s almost disturbing how typical she seems, chasing around after her friends on school field trips, crushing on the handsome young man assigned to serve as her personal security, worrying over the fit of a new skirt.
But things begin to change when she’s asked to mentor Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a recently arrived Pearl Girl—Aunt Lydia’s term for a foreigner who has come to Gilead seeking to convert and commit to its way of life—from Canada, who has a painful history and secrets of her own. As the two grow closer, Daisy’s forthrightness leads Agnes to begin to question the world around her in ways that threaten to change her life and future forever.
THE TESTAMENTS – “Perfect Teeth” – As Agnes begins the rituals that mark her coming of age, she struggles with the confusing stirrings of adolescence. Meanwhile, Daisy is subjected to Gilead’s system of discipline. (Disney/Russ Martin)
AMY SEIMETZ
One of the most remarkable things about “The Testaments” is that, for all its dystopian setting and authoritarian trappings, it’s actually a fairly relatable and compelling teen drama. Yes, it takes place in a nightmarish hellscape where most of the girls at its center don’t know enough about the world around them to recognize everything that they’re missing out on. (Like freedom and bodily autonomy.)
Yet, many of its plot beats are still deeply familiar: The girls get jealous of one another’s successes, have crushes they shouldn’t, and stress about meeting the expectations of others. In fact, they often seem so normal that it’s genuinely shocking when they suddenly parrot the familiar talking points of their government about things like gender traitors and fallen women. But over the course of the season’s ten episodes, they find increasing ways (both subtle and not so much) to finally claim their own power.
Infiniti makes for a capable lead, walking a fine line between Gilead golden girl and traditional teen, engaging in small acts of rebellion, resenting the adults in her life (particularly her unkind stepmother), and questioning the truth of the parentage she’s been kept from. (Like many in Gilead, she is technically the daughter of a Handmaid.) But it is Halliday who steals the show, her Daisy a mass of contradictions and rage, who finds herself much more attached to the girls at Aunt Lydia’s than she ever expected to be.
The show has a strong ensemble feel, and the friendships among the girls at its center feel lived-in and relatable, despite the horrific circumstances in which they unfold. Mattea Conforti is a particular standout as Agnes’s Gilead BFF Becka, and Rowan Blanchard offers some surprisingly satisfying comedic moments as group gossip Shunammite.
“The Testaments” is many things: A political cautionary tale, a warning against both complicity and complacency, a love letter to friendship, and a welcome reminder of the power of teenage girls to change the world. If the lessons of “The Handmaid’s Tale” revolved around a single woman’s ability to fight for change, here that work is transformed into a group effort—and a necessary reminder that even in the bleakest of times, we’re stronger than we are apart.
All ten episodes screened for review. Premieres April 8 on Hulu.
- “It Became a Dark Place”: Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear on “Killers of the Flower Moon” (April 2, 2026)
Cinematic depictions of Native tragedy have historically been fraught with questions over authenticity, realism, and empathy; this was doubly true of Martin Scorsese‘s most recent film to date, 2023’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which dramatized David Grann’s eponymous book chronicling the Reign of Terror against members of the Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma. To counteract the usual blinders white artists often exhibit when telling Native stories, Scorsese and the film’s producers took great care to collaborate with the Osage in all aspects of production, ensuring that Osage were heavily represented on both sides of the camera.
But one of the first people who needed convincing was Geoffrey Standing Bear, Principal Chief of the Osage Nation since 2014, who had worked with Grann while researching his book but was wary of a film adaptation. “The first and most important thing was [preserving] the Osage language,” says Chief Standing Bear, but they could not get a commitment from some of the movie’s initial producers. Soon after, the producers brought in Scorsese, and with less than 24 hours’ notice, he was in the front room at the Osage tribal headquarters talking with Chief Standing Bear. “We hit it off immediately.”
Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth’s script recentered the narrative from Grann’s more clinical investigation into the murders, which led to the creation of the FBI, towards the personal tragedies and betrayals of duplicitous whites (in particular, Robert De Niro‘s William Hale and Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Ernest Burkhart) against the Osage they cozied up to, then murdered for their oil rights. The bizarre love story between Ernest and his Osage wife, Mollie, played by Lily Gladstone in an Oscar-nominated performance, became the film’s emotional center, a study in ambiguity between two people who love each other, even as one slowly tries to kill the other and eradicate her family.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023 and would go on to receive ten Oscar nominations. Despite its broad critical acclaim and the surfacing of discussions around Native representation on screen, it was a disappointment at the box office, and questions have abounded for years about whether a physical release was possible. Fortunately, thanks to the Criterion Collection, the film received a gorgeous 4K physical release earlier this month, with special features including new documentaries with Scorsese, Osage cultural consultants (including Chief Standing Bear), and others, as well as archival interviews and docs on the arresting final shot in the film and Noah Kemohah’s cover art for the disk.
Chief Standing Bear was kind enough to have a conversation with RogerEbert.com on the week of the physical disk release, at the moment he saw his own copy, to talk about the experience of consulting on the film, how Scorsese assuaged his fears of exploitation, and the frustrating lack of progress the Osage Nation has experienced in the wake of its release.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
It’s been a couple of years since the film came out; what memories do you have of the film’s reception, especially its Oscar attention?
CHIEF STANDING BEAR: I think it’s important that people understand that this is a true story. During the Academy Awards process, we met people who said they would not vote for “Killers of the Flower Moon” because it was just too outrageous. We had to convince them and say, “No, this really was a true story”; it’s a story that would be shocking to a casual observer, but for us, it’s been part of our history for 100 years. That was one issue we took seriously and tried to correct.
But we also learned that once the press and PR teams start going in a direction, that’s the direction they want to go, and that’s the way it’s going to be. So we kept ourselves generally within our culture, with our songs and our language. You saw that one of our drum groups was nominated for the Best Original Song Academy Award, with Scott George; that’s when we really started to come out again.
Speaking of which, that final shot is still so arresting, with the glib, clinical radio play giving way to the Osage dancing to the Oscar-nominated song “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People).” Which, as I understand, was constructed originally rather than being a distinct Osage ceremony or tradition.
The filming was done on the streets of Pawhuska, where I live in Oklahoma, which were designed, built, or restored to resemble the streets of Fairfax, Oklahoma, during the 1920s, a town 25 miles from here. The excitement showed itself. When people wanted to have a big ceremonial dance at the end, we couldn’t have a real ceremony. But they asked, “What about a powwow?” Some said, “Well, those are fun and light; this is a serious story.” So they decided to do whatever they could and enjoy themselves.”
You’ll see at the end of the movie that the Osage are dancing and celebrating, and my initial response was, “Why are we celebrating this? The movie is not really a happy ending, because it’s a true, tragic story.” But the younger people pointed out to me and others, “Uncle Geoff, it’s not what you’re thinking. What Marty Scorsese is doing is showing that we are still here, and that itself is a cause for celebration.” As usual, the younger people understood what was going on better than my generation, and that moment was created by Marty Scorsese and the Osage people who were participating—the singers, dancers, and families who supported it. I remember that very well.
In your estimation, what impact have you seen in the Osage community or other Native communities in terms of visibility, or any of the social or political goals the Osage have in the years since the film came out?
None! I was at an event this morning, welcoming economic development directors from Oklahoma here in our hotel and casino. I brought that up, not knowing you were going to ask this question. I thanked everyone for the acknowledgments, but then said, “Let’s talk about the missed opportunities.” As I explained this morning, in March 2020, my directors and top staff told me there was no meat or food because COVID had shut down the meat-processing plants in our area, as well as in Colorado and Texas. Our casinos ended up closing. All the momentum we’d built and the creativity of working together were put on pause for months, and the movie packed up and moved away. We didn’t know if they were coming back.
We did not have the talent base you may have in New York or Los Angeles. Our actors, older and younger, go to New York City and elsewhere to join other artists. Once they leave, we have a hard time keeping them all here. So today, in this meeting, I chose that as the subject, zeroing in on the Fairfax and Grey Horse community leaders themselves to use “Flower Moon,” as some other communities have done, to drive tourism. That’s what we’re working on.
I’m sure that feels frustrating, that so much work and care went into your participation and the community’s participation in the picture, to not have it yield the rewards you hoped you’d have in terms of keeping Native talent in Oklahoma and generating revenue in the state.
We do have talent here, and there are folks who did stay. But some now live in the Northwest United States, and that’s the way it is. We have tribes that have developed relationships with producers and directors, but nothing like what Marty Scorsese and the team had with us. That was pretty special.
What made it special for you? I know there was a concerted effort to ensure the Osage participated in every aspect of the production process, and I’m sure the festival process was surreal.
It’s worth noting that none of this is sponsored by the Osage Nation; this is a private endeavor. But we had 100 extras, and Osage people were working behind the camera. We had people working with world-class cinematographers like Rodrigo Prieto and set designer Jack Fisk. Fisk, he would just sit around like a regular guy. I didn’t know who he was. I went up to him, and he goes, “Yeah, I’m a set designer.” “What movies have you worked on?” “Have you seen ‘The Revenant’?” Which I love. He goes, “That’s me.”
These people are just regular, nice, talented people, very special. I met a lot of the people who picked who would be in the movie and what they would do. I was so impressed by how professional they were, how hard they worked, and how wonderful they are as people. There was just an incredible energy. It’s an experience of a lifetime.
I’m sure the festival process was surreal as well.
I asked Chad Renfro, an Osage who is familiar with the artistic world [and Consulting Producer on “Killers of the Flower Moon”], “Where are we going with all this? They’re going to be coming here, but you keep talking about going out into the film community and openings in New York,” and he says we’re going to Cannes from here. That we’d start at the top and work our way back. We did, and it was the most amazing thing to see Osages going down that red carpet, stopping in front of the 300 cameras and posing this way and that.
Someone from Apple yelled at me, “Chief, go!” But my leg injury made it hard, so I just decided I was going to take a beeline down this giant red carpet and look straight ahead. I did it, and didn’t trip or fall. The cameras parted, and I walked right up those steps. And what an experience that was, in that theater, and all the stars and celebrities that were all there. I haven’t really sat down and decompressed that after all these years, but I hold a lot of nice memories here. It was something I’ve never seen.
It must have been interesting for you, especially as a politician who’s familiar with advocating for your community in local and national settings, to suddenly step foot in a global context, much less in a cultural or artistic space like that.
And remember, there was an actor’s and writer’s strike going on at the time. So without them, they asked us to step up to represent the film. I remember at the Academy Awards, seeing our nominated singers and their families pack into 13 limousines and drive off to the Dolby Theater to practice for that evening’s on-stage presentation. To see all of our traditional singers, the women wearing their traditional blankets, in West Hollywood, doing that isn’t something you see every day.
What was your collaboration with Scorsese and the producers like? What was the overall feeling you had in how to incorporate Osage elements, and make sure depictions didn’t just shoot for “authenticity,” but to have an active voice in the shaping of it?
I’ll sum it up in one moment at the Cannes premiere, where they sat me next to my new friend, Robert De Niro. We were watching the movie, and he came on, speaking Osage very loudly and addressing the Osage characters. I remember he was sitting to my right, and I remember putting my hand on his left forearm, like “well done.” And he put his right hand over my hand. It was a nice acknowledgment. I think we all hit it just right; the language and the dress, the film, the actors, the audience, everybody there. That was a significant moment for me. It was pretty awesome.
While the initial release may not have had the effect you hoped for in achieving the Osage’s political goals, how does it feel to have the film finally in a physical format? For a while there, we didn’t think we’d ever get this anywhere but streaming. And you’re featured in a couple of the special features.
My daughter told me that. I can tell you, Marty and I really got to like each other as people, and during these interviews, they just had me talk, whether I knew the cameras were recording or not. I was looking at a young man around your age, and I started asking him, “You talking to me? You talking to me?” because he was trying to talk to Marty and me. And Marty told me that Bob De Niro ad-libbed that line in “Taxi Driver.” Which I thought was amazing, and the kind of fun you have to have when talking about such a serious subject.
Yeah, as I understand it, the murders were a subject the Osage had been reticent to talk about until now.
Absolutely. But I can tell you, everything about Marty Scorsese’s aura of artistic talent and kindness is just beautiful. And we have to mention David Grann, who is the author of the book. He started his research work with Catherine Redcorn, now deceased, and then went into the Grey Horse community with other Osage elders and really put the subject, which we don’t talk about, to the forefront. So now we’re talking about it. Thirty years ago, you and I would be having this conversation out of concern that we’re going to offend families whose elders, their ancestors, were murdered. That’s one thing the movie’s done: through David, then Marty, it became a subject we could talk about, to a limited extent. We still avoid making speeches about it, especially regarding certain families. That’s not proper protocol.
Really, this is all about that one gang over in the Grey Horse/Fairfax area. The whole reservation was rampant with crime, money, alcohol, and death. It became a dark place.
I’m glad there’s an opportunity to air these injustices and have the story told, especially by the Osage. It’s also heartening to see Noah Kemohah’s artwork from the theatrical posters transferred to the Criterion disk.
This is the first I’ve seen of the disk, and the art is great. We’re all artistic; all Native tribes are artistic. Except for me, I can’t draw a circle. But I’m surrounded by people who make great art.
- Female Filmmakers in Focus: Sophy Romvari on “Blue Heron” (April 1, 2026)
An emotionally autobiographical work in line with the filmmaker’s previous short films, which straddle the world of creative nonfiction, Sophy Romvari’s debut feature film “Blue Heron” mines her family’s own painful history to craft a tender film that expands the potential of what a coming-of-age film can be.
Blurring the lines between the past and the present, the film follows eight-year-old Sasha (Eylul Guven), who, along with her Hungarian immigrant parents and her three siblings, has relocated to Vancouver Island in the late 1990s. As the family adjusts to their new surroundings, her oldest brother Jeremy (Edik Beddoes) begins to display potentially dangerous behavioral issues.
A Canadian-Hungarian filmmaker based in Toronto, Romvari has spent the last decade making powerful, personal films that explore the tenuous connections we all have with time and with memory itself. Romvari studied film at Capilano University and holds an MFA from York University. Her highly acclaimed short film “Still Processing,” which was her thesis film at York, examines the unresolved grief held by her family over the death of her two older brothers. Her short films have screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, Hot Docs, Sheffield Doc/Fest, and True/False. They have been featured as a collection on Criterion Channel and in a retrospective at the Museum of Moving Image.
Writing out of the film’s world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival, where it won the Swatch First Feature Award, Robert Daniels praised the unique structure of “Blue Heron,” finding that it was made with a “startlingly raw vulnerability” and that it “hits with such precision, it could break you open from the inside.” A few weeks later, the film had its Canadian premiere as part of the Centrepiece program at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the Best Canadian Discovery Award.
“Blue Heron” has played festivals all over the world, including the Vancouver International Film Festival, the International Film Festival of India, the Bangkok International Film Festival, and the San Sebastián Film Festival, and was named the Best First Feature and awarded the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award from the Toronto Film Critics Association.
For this month’s Female Filmmakers in Focus column, RogerEbert.com spoke to Romvari over Zoom about how images and image-making impact our experience of time and memory, why making short films is the best way to build up your filmmaking prowess, and being part of a lineage of women who use personal filmmaking as a way to reflect on issues of society at large.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
I first saw your film at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall. I didn’t know the plot going in, and it quietly destroyed me because when I was a teenager, I also had emotional issues, and I ended up in foster care. I was like Sasha’s brother. I was like Jeremy. So, watching this film brought up a lot of emotions and made me think about what it was like for my brother to be my sibling while I was going through all of that.
I think this is a movie that taps into some deeply unnameable emotions. You’ve taken this film around to several festivals, so I wondered if you’ve had other people come up to you and talk about how it touched them in similar ways, even though it is so personal to your experience?
Thank you for sharing that story with me. It means a lot to me, especially when people who relate more to Jeremy than to any other character connect with the film. Because I think that was the intangible thing that I couldn’t know. When you’re representing an experience outside yourself, you don’t know how it’s gonna be reflected for other people. So it means a lot that you felt a reflection in that experience.
It has actually been a very heavy film to release, for obvious reasons, but also because of the reactions from the people who have been watching it. I feel like I’m carrying a lot of emotional response, which is such a gift, but it’s also very heavy, because it almost comes with guilt, in a way. I’m seeing people’s very emotional reactions, and people are telling me very difficult things that maybe were locked inside them, and to make something that allows people to have that response is a privilege. But also as a human being, I’m like, whoa.
I feel like the only other film that hits on this deep of a level, and I mean this as the highest of compliments, is Spielberg’s “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.” Every time I watch that movie. I don’t know what it evokes, but I have to, like, hold myself in a corner for a few days. I had the exact same experience both times I watched your film.
“A.I.” makes me sob every time too. I just re-watched it, actually. I wouldn’t say it was a reference, but there’s a spiritual connection. It’s funny because I believe it was the first film I ever saw in a movie theater.
Wow.
Because I grew up on a really tiny island, not Vancouver Island, another smaller island where there wasn’t a movie theater. So it wasn’t until I was older that I started going to movie theaters. I watched that film with my mom. So it definitely had an effect on me, and Spielberg in general. The way he shows life and the world from a child’s perspective. “A.I.” is one of the best movies.
I really tried to focus on depicting my point of view as a sibling, because that was a perspective I hadn’t seen this kind of story be told from, and it also was the perspective I felt I had the most authorship over, and I didn’t want to speak for my brother or my parents. But obviously, I can’t depict my own experience in a vacuum. So, it’s been interesting to see people respond in relation to all of the different characters like this. There are the siblings who respond, having related to that experience; there are the Jeremys; and then there are the parents.
The parents are really difficult. Those conversations have been quite difficult. I’ve met quite a few people who’ve lost children. Or siblings who have lost siblings. There is a communal catharsis that I feel occurs. During Q&As, people are vulnerable and open up about these, like, really difficult things, which is so beautiful. But as a filmmaker, I don’t always have the tools to respond the way I want to. I know they’re responding to the movie, but I want to respond to their response in a way that validates their emotional experience, yet I don’t always feel like I have the right words. So it’s been an interesting and heavy experience for that reason.
Do you feel that through the making of your shorts, you were able to process a lot of the emotions in order to get to a point where you can make this feature film?
I do think I couldn’t have made this film, had I not made all the short films, both artistically and emotionally. I think I was trying all sorts of things and different filmmaking approaches in my short films, which helped me build confidence as a director. That experience gave me a lot of time to become comfortable with the topic, and I can talk about it much more easily now. That was the point from the beginning, not wanting to repress these feelings and experiences. I spent so long making those short films that I really, by the time I got to make the feature, I felt like I could really focus just on the craft.
There are some edits in this film that are so beautiful, where you feel like you’re in one moment, and then it reveals you’re actually different. Like when you think you’re watching the heron fly, but it’s actually Jeremy watching the heron fly on the TV. You do that a couple of times, where the edit unmoors the viewer.
I think I’m always interested in moments in films that upend your expectation of what you’re watching. Whose perspective is it? Where is the point of view coming from? I think that’s why I was excited about the structure: I could have just told the whole story from the past and watched this family come undone. But it was the perspective being switched from child to adulthood, which I experienced, and we all experience, that I found to be interesting. Because I could actually play with the expectations of the coming-of-age genre.
I think coming of age is not something that happens when you’re a child or a teenager; it happens when you’re an adult. Where you start to have self-awareness about your past and how it made you into the person you are. That’s my understanding of coming of age. I don’t think I really came of age until my twenties, when I started looking back on my past and understood why I became the person I am. The movie is, for me, as much about Jeremy and grief as it is about what makes a person who they are. I think I started to understand the obvious reasons why I became a filmmaker when I had that self-awareness.
There’s a scene where Jeremy’s making it snow with flour for his siblings while the Dad is taking photographs. When he is developing the film, he says, “Time is going backwards. It’s a time warp.” I love the way you incorporate film and photography, not only to capture time but also because an image can be an emotional time warp; you are then playing with all the different philosophical aspects of image-making. I’d love to hear how that’s part of you as an artist, and how it’s reflected in the film.
I love that you pointed out that scene, because I think it’s such an important moment. I think image-making is something I’m naturally drawn to because of my Dad and the way I grew up around someone who was always documenting everything around him, including me as a subject. So I think the photographic image became a part of my acknowledgement of reality, of that time existing. I think of documentation as a way of bearing witness to reality. Sometimes I really question my own reality and memories. I think photographs, the photographic image, feels like proof. My Dad has this huge archive of our family that proves that there was a time before everything happened that was so beautiful. Those images are so precious to me now.
When I made “Still Processing,” I was studying the photographic image, its impact, and how it depicts mortality. This has been written very eloquently by people far more academic than I, but it’s something I studied because I think it’s about the impact of seeing those images for the first time, for me, versus seeing the video images, and the video content was very different.
I think that’s why all of my films have been about characters who are obsessed with looking at the past and looking at old photographs, looking at old videos, and trying to come to terms with the past. I think “Blue Heron” is the first film where I finally feel it’s more about accepting than processing. Sasah comes to a place where she ultimately can’t do anything about the past anymore, and she’s just coming to a place of acceptance. The photographs thematically are part of that story.
When you come to accept the past, you still carry bits of it with you, right? For Sasha, there’s the blue heron keychain that Jeremy gave her, and she also has her mom’s evil eye in her car. So she’s carrying her whole family and that whole thing with her, even as she moves forward as a person.
You’re the first person to point out the evil eye. No one else has noticed that. We tried to infuse subtle inheritances. Things that she had from her past. She’s wearing a t-shirt that Jeremy wore earlier in the film when she’s making breakfast. These little things that were hand-me-downs or from her parents.
I really was trying to show, in her childhood, the things her parents were teaching her, and then, in the second half, you see them being applied. So she’s cooking with her mom as a kid, and then later, you see her making her own breakfast. Little parallels like that. Or in the first half of the film, you see the mom recording the conversation with the psychiatrist without his knowledge. Then Sasha does the same in the second half, using her iPhone while speaking with her parents. The dad literally handing her the camera is just a very literal metaphor of this being handed down to her.
So I was trying to show the ways that you are shaped by your circumstances, but also by your parents and who they are. I think a lot about nature versus nurture, especially in relation to my brother, who grew up in the same environment but had such different outcomes in our lives. I feel like I carry a lot of survivor’s guilt in that I wonder why my life turned out this way, and his turned out that way. He did have a different father, but we grew up in the same circumstances. It’s something I feel like I can’t help but grapple with.
That is why I wanted to show the siblings’ point of view. But it was important that I admitted this is not a depiction of this person. This is just a fragmented attempt to show what I experienced. Jeremy’s only line in the movie, pretty much, is just, “I think there are a lot of things you don’t remember.” I acknowledge that this is a surface-level, impressionistic view of a person. This character is so dissimilar from my brother. There’s no way I could even begin to depict my brother. So it’s just emotionally autobiographical, and unless it’s actually footage of him, it’s never going to be accurate.
I think that line is really perceptive, just from my experience. My brother is a little bit older, but I remember everything that I went through because I went through it. But he doesn’t remember very much. I feel like his mind helped him get through it by just putting it in a box. So whenever I’m still working through stuff, he’s like, “Why are you still thinking about this?” And I’m like, “I don’t know. Why aren’t you?” It’s interesting how, with siblings, going through a lot of difficult emotions at a young age helps the body and mind develop coping mechanisms.
I thought about that a lot. I would write scenes that I had a vague memory of, but then I would speak to my parents, and they would say what I had written was so misremembered. They were like, “That’s not how that happened at all. It was much more extreme.” There were just variations, and I couldn’t believe how much I didn’t remember. Once I realized that, I decided it didn’t matter. It’s about what makes sense narratively and cinematically, and how I am going to depict it to move the story forward. It didn’t matter anymore if it was true or exactly how it happened, because if you honor that too much, then you’re creatively limiting yourself. So I just threw that out the window.
There are some needle drops in this film that are literally two of my favorite songs of all time. When King Crimson’s “I Talk To The Wind” came on, I gasped in the theater. But also “Some Things Last a Long Time” by Daniel Johnson at the end was just so beautiful. Every song by him makes me cry.
I could do a whole lecture on music supervision, because it’s so hard to find songs that you can even relatively afford. And music was so important to me. The entire atmosphere of the film stemmed from the diegetic music playing in the house. When I looked back at the videos my dad had taken, there was always music playing in the background that sounded like a musical score. So I tried to implement that in the film in the same way, where the music is coming from a source, and it’s not a musical score in the movie, but it creates the atmosphere of a musical score in the household. That was a big part of the dad’s character in the film. He’s always at a distance, but he’s creating an artistic atmosphere for the kids to live within.
So all the music was based more or less on my dad’s taste, which obviously became my own. I was talking a lot to my brother about things we remember Dad playing, and just how our tastes have all melded together. Like, I went to see the movie “The Devil and Daniel Johnson” with my parents in a theater. They loved Daniel Johnson as well. So I think all the music was little hidden love letters to my parents and acknowledgements of the impact that their tastes have had on me. Both of them are very artistic people who also love movies, and it had a big impact on me. But it was hard because it was very expensive, so we had to raise extra funds just for the music.
You bring a touch of quasi-documentary filmmaking to the scene with the social workers. I think one of the main things most people don’t have to grapple with, if they don’t have issues as a teenager, is the social services system. But having gone through it, I can say it’s a horrible system. I think it’s horrible everywhere. I don’t know why, I don’t know if there’s an answer. I like that you didn’t necessarily look for an answer. You just looked for various ways it can fail, or for the fact that there are so many variables in these kinds of situations that the system can’t cover them all.
It’s so complicated, and from a systemic perspective, we just do not have an answer. I think having grown up with a heavy presence of social services coming in and out of my house with different suggestions and solutions that never really brought any kind of relief to anybody, but also witnessing really caring, loving people who were trying to do their best within their limited roles, I really wanted to show that juxtaposition. The people within those systems are often well-intentioned, but within government systems and their limitations, all these things converge and create a very broken system where it’s so easy for people to fall through the cracks. I did so much research on social services and on psychology. I spoke to various experts while writing the script, and every single person said the same thing: there was no good answer for these things.
I even spoke to a specialist whose entire psychological research was around siblings who grew up with siblings who had extreme behavioral issues. That was his exact focus. He has a child who is very similar to my brother, who is like Jeremy. This is his entire focus, and yet, as a parent, it still happened in his family. I really wanted to show a very specific example of it, which is my own, but I know that it’s not that unique, you know? I think everyone feels isolated in their experiences. Parents, especially, feel very isolated in their experiences. They feel like they fucked up. They ask, “What did we do wrong?” And the system forces you to feel that way. Then, as someone like yourself, going through the system, you feel like you’re the scapegoat for the problems. It really is a problem that I think there is nowhere to really place the blame, except for potentially the government.
It was important to me that the social workers in the film were real social workers and experts, because I wanted them to speak for themselves, which is why we cast them. It wasn’t because I wanted a documentary aspect to the film. I need them to speak from their professional experience. I did a test shoot with social workers, and I played Sasha. We did the whole conversation, which ended with them saying, “Even now, twenty years later, we don’t have a much better response to this.” It was important that it was actually baked into the reality, not just me writing a script.
Your film is wonderfully empathetic with how the parents feel. Even though they’re trying to get help and social services are trying to help them, they still feel like they’re bad parents. She says social services thinks she’s a bad mom. When I was a teenager, I didn’t think that my parents felt like they were bad parents, but I realized when I got older, I was in foster care. Of course, they felt like they were bad parents. You have to get older to realize how your parents even felt about you growing up, let alone how you felt about your parents. I think this is a film that had to have been made when you were older, so that you could have that perspective. I’m glad you waited until you had that perspective, so that it could be a fuller portrait.
If I had made this when I was twenty-five, it would have been much more angry and confused and in the middle of everything. I think I needed the time and the space to actually make the film, not just emotionally, but artistically as well. Back then, it wouldn’t be as coherent. I think a lot of people are rushing to make their first feature before they’re thirty, or whatever, but I highly recommend making shorts until you feel you actually have something to say.
How do you hope people will feel when the film is over?
I hope they feel okay. I’ve been asked, “What do you want people to take from it?” But I don’t want people to feel a certain way. If they happen to feel moved by it, I hope they feel open to it and accepting of those feelings, however they choose to process them. It’s a very personal film that I think I’ve opened up to the world, and I made it with the hope that people could connect to it, and it’s so clear to me that this film is emotionally resonating with a lot of people, but it would be strange if it did that for everybody.
Were there any films by other women filmmakers that either inspired you or that you think not enough people have seen?
A film I only discovered while prepping this film, after a friend recommended it, was Martha Coolidge’s 1976 “Not A Pretty Picture.” I bring it up specifically because you said it’s underseen. It was only restored in 2022 and had such a small release. Watching it now, it’s crazy to me how much of an impact it clearly had, even somehow subconsciously, on so many filmmakers. It’s doing the hybrid techniques so elegantly, and it’s from fifty years ago. There are some films made before it that are hybrid, of course. But I think the way she’s balancing the fiction, the emotional catharsis, and the personal filmmaking is incredible.
I’m in a long line of women, specifically, who make work based on processing their pasts, especially within systemic harm and societal issues, using themselves as a vessel to discover those things. When I saw that film, it just made me feel like I was in conversation with a film that I had not even seen. It made me feel like there is something very specific and special about the way that women use film. There’s a whole history behind that, and it’s an honor to be in a historical conversation with these other films that, for some reason, women are drawn to making.
Coolidge’s film also helped me feel more confident in my own film’s structure. Because I think the way that she’s using cross-cutting makes a lot of sense for that movie, but it made me realize that what I was trying to do was actually different. I really wanted to show time being ripped away from someone. I think when you cross-cut, you actually cradle time, and you don’t have that same effect of time disappearing. That’s why I wanted to avoid cross-cutting between the two timelines. I wanted it to be a jarring bifurcation in the middle where you’re suddenly in adulthood. Sometimes it’s affirming to watch something you love, doing something in a way that affirms a decision to do the same thing differently.
