I missed out on the first film of yesterday's slate, Shotgun Stories by Jeff Nichols, because I wanted to get my first dispatch up before I left the hotel for the day. By the time I made it over to the Virginia Theater and found parking (a feat almost as difficult as finding parking in New York City -- okay, not quite, but it is a bit of a challenge) the screening had started already.

Fortunately, I've seen the film already on a screener, and though I would have liked to have seen it on a big screen, I can tell you that this tale of brothers in rural Arkansas coming to terms with the death of their abusive father is an excellent little indie film, and very deserving of the Independent Spirit Award it won earlier this year. Hanging out outside the theater throughout the day, I kept hearing fest folks talking about this film and how much they loved it, and I'm glad Roger added it to this year's program.

I arrived in lovely Urbana, Illinois late Wednesday night after being grounded by a thunderstorm and missing my connection in Chicago, but all is well now that I'm here for this lovely little fest. The heart and soul of Ebertfest, of course, is Roger Ebert, who is sadly absent this year due to fracturing his hip while doing physical therapy trying to get strong enough to be here.

Roger has written on his own blog about his sadness at not being able to be here to enjoy the films he programmed and to see his many friends. Those of us who are here for the fest feel his absence. Last year, he sat in the back row of the Virginia Theater, ensconced in the recliner brought in for him, where he sat flanked by his nurse on one side and wife Chaz on the other, and his warmth and enthusiasm radiated through the stately theater. This year, the chair sits empty, and though he is here in spirit, that gentle, humble presence and ever-ready smile are keenly missed, though everyone here, of course, is more concerned about his health than anything else.

Roger Ebert's January announcement that he was going in for another major surgery began a long and disquieting silence. As the reviews he had written in advance started to run out, with no updates on his health and more and more of the content on his website being contributed by its steadfast editor Jim Emerson, some people began to worry that something was very seriously wrong. March saw the announcement that Ebert would reappear for his annual Overlooked Film Festival in Urbana-Champaign, but there was still no word from the man himself.

Yesterday, much to my relief, a typically funny and self-deprecating message from Roger appeared on his site and in the Sun-Times. It confirms his planned appearance at Ebertfest in late April, and, better yet, announces that he will return to reviewing movies shortly afterward. The bad news is that the surgery didn't restore his ability to speak, which will for the moment preclude Ebert's return to his TV show where Richard Roeper has been valiantly trying to hold down the fort. (Is anyone still watching?) That aside, though, the dispatch is overwhelmingly good news.

Editor's note: Roger Ebert, in spite of health problems last year, was at Ebertfest from start to finish last year, and Perfume was one of the films screened there. You'll find links to our coverage of last year's fest after the jump.

After so many years of watching movies, Roger Ebert, 65, knows that the show must go on. And so he has announced his plans to appear in person at the10th annual Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, a.k.a. Ebertfest, which will take place April 23-27 in Champaign-Urbana, home of the University of Illinois.

Ebert has rarely made public appearances in recent years due to thyroid cancer, which has robbed him of his voice. He is still selecting this year's lineup, culled from films he has reviewed and has deemed overlooked in some form, but he has definitely announced a rare 70mm screening of Kenneth Branagh's magnificent 4-hour Hamlet (1996). (It's the only movie ever made with a lousy performance from Jack Lemmon and a brilliant one by Billy Crystal.)

Tre, the third feature by filmmaker Eric Byler (Charlotte Sometimes, Americanese) continues his theme of exploring relationships, marriage, fidelity and friendship. The film centers on four friends: Kakela (Kimberly-Rose Wolter, who also starred in Charlotte Sometimes and co-wrote this film), an aspiring writer, her boyfriend Gabe (Erik McDowell), Gabe's best friend Tre (newcomer Daniel Cariaga) and Nina (Alix Koromzay), an aspiring actress/waitress who's separated from her husband.

As the film opens Tre, the slacker son of a wealthy family, shows up at Gabe and Kakela's house, where he occasionally lives, only to find Nina has taken over his room after leaving her husband. Angry sparks fly between Nina and Tre from their first encounter, but annoyance soon gives way to more amicable pursuits between them. Nina is on the outs from her husband because he kissed another woman for ten seconds at a party; when her friends question whether that's really a reason to leave a marriage, she notes that "ten seconds is a long time to kiss someone you're not supposed to be kissing" and then methodically counts ten seconds aloud to drive home her point.

With his second feature film, Chop Shop, director Ramin Bahrani carries on his theme of exploring the "invisible people" of society that he started with his first film, Man Push Cart, which played Sundance (and other fests) in 2006. Where Man Push Cart showed a cross-section of the life of a former Pakistani pop star reduced to selling doughnuts and coffee to busy Manhattanites, in Chop Shop Bahrani shows us the life of a young Latino boy who lives and works in the Iron Triangle district of New York City. Bahrani took time out of pre-prod for his latest film, Solo, to chat with Cinematical by phone about Chop Shop, Man Push Cart, and his unique style of making films.

Cinematical: Both Man Push Cart and Chop Shop have the similar thematic element of focusing on people whose lives most people don't spend a lot of energy thinking about -- the guy who sells them coffee and bagels on their way to work, the street kid hustling in a chop shop. Why the focus on these "invisible" people?

Ramin Bahrani: I don't know how you feel about this, and I don't know what the reaction is going to be to Chop Shop when it's released in the States, when more people in the States see this film. I think both these films are about immigrant-type characters: in Chop Shop, Ale is young enough that he maybe could have been born here, or if he and Isamar immigrated they were very young, that was left deliberately ambiguous -- but I don't think that's the essential tissue of the film. I just feel like I'm tired of seeing the same independent films being made over and over again. This "mumblecore" stuff that's popular right now -- I'm not interested in these stories about these really attractive white kids, and their really attractive friends, and their problems. I'm interested in these groups of people, the people you don't see featured so much in films, and that's why I focus on them.

I see the connection between these characters in my films, and the kind of people who will see the film – mostly white, educated, the bourgeois, you know? Not that there's anything wrong with those people at all, it's just that they're the most likely demographic to see independent films at all. I'd like to see someone figure out how to market a film like Chop Shop to Hispanic school-age kids, but that's just not reality.

But as a filmmaker I don't see it as my job to connect those pieces of society. There is a connection between the screen and the viewer, and how the viewer reacts to it, but I'm not interested in why that chop shop exists, or why Ahmad's character exists, or why the taxi driver (in his next film, Solo) exists. I'm not a moral filmmaker, there's no moral message in the end of my films, there's no moral question. The characters are pretty pragmatic. In Chop Shop, Ale is involved in many things that people watching the film may find immoral or illegal, and they may be confused about why there's no judgment in the film, why there's no good or bad in the film. But it's who he is, he's surviving, and he's a kid – he doesn't make those judgments. That's just where he is, and I just think it's not my place to judge them.

From the moment I saw Ramin Bahrani's Man Push Cart at Sundance a couple years ago, I knew I'd found a filmmaker I was going to like. In Man Push Cart, Bahrani took a figure most folks who live in or visit New York City take for granted -- the guys who operate the shiny metal pushcarts you see dotting every other street corner, pimping doughnuts and coffee to busy Manhattanites -- and explored the fictional existence of pushcart man Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi), a former Pakistani pop star turned average deeply depressed guy trying to survive in the wake of his wife's death. Man Push Cart impressed me because of both the depth with which Bahrani explored his character and the gritty realism with which the film plopped the viewer into Ahmad's dismal, but not hopeless, existence.

Bahrani scored well with Man Push Cart -- the film premiered at Venice before going on to play a slew of fests, including Sundance, before getting a limited theatrical release and a DVD release the UK and Spain (soon to come in the US, according to Bahrani's official website). But in spite of being called " ... among the most striking American independent movies of the last year" (along with In Between Days and Cavite) by Dennis Lim, writing for the New York Times, Man Push Cart was rather overlooked by a lot of critics at Sundance and didn't find huge theatrical success. Roger Ebert liked the film enough to slot it in his Overlooked Film Festival the same year, but the film's total box office is just over $55,000, according to Box Office Mojo. I was disappointed it didn't do better off the fest circuit; it was one of the best independent films I saw that year, and I eagerly waited to see what Bahrani was going to do which his next film, and I'm pleased to be able to say that with Chop Shop, Bahrani has a solid follow-up.

When the film Moolaadé was introduced at Ebertfest, the woman taking on introduction duties on Roger Ebert's behalf said that she had asked Ebert if there was anything in particular he wanted her to say about the film. "Best film at Cannes in 2004," was his reply, and after seeing the film it's easy to see why.

Moolaadé certainly tackled one of the hardest subjects addressed at Cannes that year -- the controversial issue of female genital mutilation. The film, set in a small African village, opens with four young girls running into a village compound and seeking protection from Coolé, one of the women there. The girls have run away from the "Purification" ceremony -- a brutal ritual in which female priestesses mutilate the genitalia of young girls.

The "cutting," as it is euphemistically called, generally involves cutting away the external female genitalia, and sometimes sewing shut the vaginal opening -- a surgical procedure performed in non-sterile conditions with no anethesia or antibiotics. If a girl is lucky, the procedure will be horribly painful and leave her maimed for life, with future sexual relations with her husband causing tearing and intense pain, and childbirth made more difficult and dangerous. Those who aren't so lucky will die from the procedure, either from loss of blood, shock, or infection.

One of the neat things about this particular festival is that Roger Ebert tends to select from a wide array of films in setting the schedule, touching on everything from silent films to classics to newer indie films that didn't get as much attention as they should have. Friday's adventures at Ebertfest kicked off with a real treat: a screening of 1923 silent film Sadie Thompson, starring Gloria Swanson. The film, adapted by director Raoul Walsh from the W. Somerset Maugham story, was restored by the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. The last bit of it, I think must have been permanently lost or destroyed, because the last couple minutes were stills rather than moving picture. The film was accompanied by a live orchestra -- if you've never had the chance to watch a silent film accompanied by orchestra, and they do that at a fest near you, check it out. The audience was so responsive to the film; it was nice to see this 2007 audience really getting into a film made in 1923, and laughing loudly throughout.

I'm here in beautiful Urbana-Champaign, Illinois (go Fighting Illini!) for Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, which will likely officially be called Ebertfest next year, seeing as how that's what everyone calls it anyhow. I'll start by getting right to the question I know a lot of you are wondering: How does Roger Ebert look? The answer is, for all he's been through in the past year or so, pretty damn good. Appearance-wise, he looks about like the pic here, which he released just before the fest (smart move, that, because everyone was prepared a bit for how he'd look after his long ordeal. He's walking in and out of the screenings on his own feet.

They have a comfy recliner set up for him in the back so he can rest comfortably while watching the films. His lovely wife Chaz is here with him, and she's taken on a lot of his duties doing intros for the films and moderating Q&As and is otherwise always by his side. He was at all three screenings today -- it takes stamina to sit through three to four movies a day when you're totally healthy; the fact that Ebert is here supporting this fest, showing up for the screenings, and talking to well-wishing fans, speaks to his strength of character and his undying passion for film.