Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and the Ebert Foundation Sponsor the No Malice Film Contest for Children and Young Adults Across Illinois to Promote Racial Healing
I am proud to announce that the Roger and Chaz Ebert Foundation is joining the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation in presenting the inaugural No Malice Film Contest for Illinois youth and young adults. Young filmmakers between the ages of 11 and 21 are invited to create short films that explore and promote racial healing. The Roger and Chaz Ebert Foundation will help run the contest and select winners in three age groups. The project is funded through the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation with a grant from Healing Illinois, a racial healing initiative of the Illinois Department of Human Services in partnership with The Chicago Community Trust.
The name of the contest is inspired by President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address in which he called for Americans to end slavery, rebuild the nation and bind up the nation’s wounds “with malice toward none, with charity for all.” But as we learned during 2020 following the death of George Floyd and the social justice protests across the globe, the wounds still sting. To heal, we must first listen to the expression of people’s pain and lived experiences. Storytelling through film has the power to change hearts and minds. My late husband Roger Ebert said that movies are a machine that generates empathy allowing us to put ourselves in the shoes and emotions of another. Empathy can lead to more understanding and compassion, acts of kindness and or forgiveness. It’s essential that the next generation who will lead us to a better place has a chance to be heard. Perhaps they can help forge a path toward unity and harmony through their art.
The emerging filmmakers will get advice from professional filmmakers in Zoom workshops held on Saturdays in February and March. To promote justice and a better world by highlighting important voices in film and supporting young artists, I have arranged for virtual presentations by Pamela Sherrod Anderson, founder of Graceworks Theater and Film Productions and an award-winning writer, filmmaker and playwright; Rita Coburn, a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning writer, and producer and co-director of “Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise,”; Oscar-nominated documentarian Steve James, who directed the famed movie “Hoop Dreams” and “Life Itself,” about Roger Ebert; Troy Osborne Pryor, a Chicago-based producer, host, and actor and founder of Creative Cypher; and T. Shawn Taylor, a writer, journalist, consultant and documentary filmmaker. You can find their full bios as well as links to register for their workshops below.
We will award cash prizes at a red-carpet debut to be held at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois on July 31st of this year. First place winners in each age bracket will receive $2,000; second place winners in each age bracket will receive $1,000; and third place winners in each age bracket will receive $500. The winning films will also be shown at the Ebertfest Film Festival at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Illinois schools will use the films, and supplemental curriculum created by educators, to talk about race and the harmful impact of bias and injustice.