Ebert film festival lineup announced

CHAMPAIGN — Roger Ebert's annual film festival in Champaign-Urbana will open next month with a showing of the 1927 German classic "Metropolis" and feature an appearance by the subject of another of the festival's films, "A Small Act."

The longtime Chicago Sun-Times film critic and Urbana native says Swedish Holocaust survivor Hilde Back will attend Ebertfest in connection with the showing of "A Small Act." The documentary is about her once-anonymous payments that sent a Kenyan student to school. The student eventually became a United Nations lawyer.

The (Champaign) News-Gazette says the 12-film lineup at the April 27-May 1 also includes "Louder than a Bomb." The documentary tracks four Chicago-area high school kids preparing for a poetry competition.

The festival also plans an appearance by director and writer Richard Linklater.