Ebert Interview

I’d like to bring something to your attention. “America the Beautiful,” isn’t supposed to exist. At least not in the form where you’d ever actually see it. I’ve had to fight all the conventional wisdom of Hollywood. This is how it’s supposed to go – 1. You make an independent film. 2. When you’re done, you get John Sloss as a producer’s rep. 3. John Sloss uses his clout to get you into the Sundance or Toronto Film Festival. 4. You win a special jury prize or an audience award at one of the festivals. 5. Your film then gets picked up by one of the independent Hollywood distributors. 6. The independent distributor releases your film in NY and L.A., then you come out in 25-50 additional cities. The industry has very little tolerance for films that don’t follow this exact trajectory.

Well we had no other choice but to skip steps 1 through 4, but “America the Beautiful,” is fortunate enough to enjoy the fruits of steps 5 and 6. The entire industry is amazed at how we did it and one day I want to share the entire story with all of you. But for now, I’ll just say, no one person or even industry knows all and don’t let such a person/industry destroy your vision.

As if we weren’t lucky enough just to be getting a national release, last week I received an email from Roger Ebert’s wife, Chaz, saying that Mr. Ebert wanted to interview me. My first thought was who in the world would send this kind of prank email at a time in my life when I can be vulnerable. But I decided to play along and guess what, it was real. Keep in mind, Roger is the holy moly, the cotton candy, the Genghis Khan of movie critics. I’ve seen hundreds of movies based on his thumb tilting up. So when she asked if I could be at their house at 5pm, my first thought was to sleep in the car a little ways down the street to make sure that I wasn’t late. But then I thought, naah, that would be unseemly, it’s best to exercise some decorum here.

Before sharing the link to his interview which is in today’s Chicago Sun-Times, I’d like to say that by popular demand, “America the Beautiful,” is opening at the ICE Theater in Chicago next Friday June 20th. When you read Roger’s article you’ll see the significance of opening in that particular theater. It was such an honor to be interviewed by a legend. I’ll try to live up to it.

By the way, yesterday a cosmetics company contacted me wanting to see the film. They said that they’d heard all about it. I guess they couldn’t wait for me to get to NY. I will keep you posted on that saga. But you must promise me one thing. Since I spent 5 years putting the film together to inform and empower you, if the cosmetics industry totally disrupts my life, you’ll at least offer me a warm meal. I wouldn’t mind sleeping on the street, but not eating would be shock and awe!

Without further ado…My interview with Roger Ebert.

Click here to read Roger Ebert’s Article

See you next weekend at the ICE Theater at 87th and the Dan Ryan.

With love,

Darryl Roberts