I am happy to give a bit more insight into how we chose the winners of The inaugural No Malice Film Contest, presented by The Roger and Chaz Ebert Foundation and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation (ALPLF) in conjunction with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. I recruited a Panel of Judges from an international list of film…

Paul Verhoeven‘s “Benedetta” was inspired by an account of the life of Sister Benedetta Carlini, a 17th-century nun who claimed to have had religious visions and was investigated both as a possible faker and for having had a lesbian affair with a fellow nun. Few movies could be more relevant to Verhoeven’s interests. In his telling,…

The No Malice Film Contest, presented by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation (ALPLF), The Roger and Chaz Ebert Foundation, and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, announced 10 winners ages 11-21 who created outstanding short films as part of Healing Illinois, a racial healing initiative of the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS)…

Somewhere adrift in the heart of a dystopian timeline, a young girl named Hayat (Basima Hajjar) earns the scorn of family members and neighbors. In Shahad Ameen’s feature debut “Scales,” Hayat’s remote island community is a tough place to call home. Unable to grow anything, the village must rely on the dark waters that surround…

“Meander” begins as many contemporary horror movies do, with a bleak landscape and determinedly moody music, in this case a turgid, overwrought faux blues adapted from the 23rd Psalm, sung by Shawn James. An empty road is seen in the deep blue color field, and in the middle of it lies Gaia Weiss’ Lisa. When…

Before Shah Rukh Khan danced his way across the screen and before Amitabh Bachchan mastered the “Angry Young Man” motif, Dilip Kumar commanded Indian cinema with a mix of dignity and gentleness. When his friend announced his death in a tweet, a generation of film lovers went into mourning. Mohammad Yusuf Sarwar Khan was born…