Ebert out of hospital; hopes to be at fest

LOS ANGELES--Roger Ebert hopes to make it to his annual namesake film festival next week despite hip surgery.

The 65-year-old film critic was recovering Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago from minor hip surgery after a recent fall.

"The show must go on," Ebert said in a statement released by a Disney spokeswoman. "I am doing fine and if the doctors clear me, I will be there to welcome our guests."

Scheduled guests at the 10th annual Roger Ebert Film Festival include Ang Lee, Richard Roeper, Richard Corliss and Christine Lahti.

The 2008 "Ebertfest"--sponsored by critic's alma mater, the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign -- will be held April 23-27.

"Please keep those thumbs up in the hopes that Roger will be there to celebrate the tenth year of his film festival," Ebert's wife, Chaz, said in a statement. "He has an indomitable spirit."

A film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times for more than 40 years, Ebert has undergone a series of cancer surgeries in recent years, including the removal of a growth on his salivary gland and a tracheostomy, a procedure that opens an airway through an incision in the windpipe, that left him unable to speak.

Ebert has been on hiatus from his TV show, "Ebert & Roeper and the Movies," since 2006.