Below is a list of films that the Alliance for Inclusion and Respect has proudly sponsored since becoming involved in Ebertfest. Click the name the film to watch the trailer.
2024-Omoiyari
In this film Violinist Kaoru Ishibashi sets out on a musical journey to explore history and his own bi-cultural identity in America.
2023-My Name is Sara
My Name is Sara is an agonizingly tense thriller about a Jewish girl posing as a gentile to escape the Nazis.
2022 – Krisha
Krisha is the story of a woman who has struggled with some substance abuse, who is now trying to reconcile with her estranged family over Thanksgiving dinner.
2021 – No Film
2020 (virtual) – A Most Beautiful Thing
A MOST BEAUTIFUL THING, a documentary film that chronicles the first African American high school rowing team in the nation made up of young men from the West Side of Chicago.
2019 – Rachel Getting Married
A young woman who has been in and out of rehab for the past ten years returns home for the weekend for her sister’s wedding.
2018 – Daughters of the Dust
A languid, impressionistic story of three generations of Gullah women living on the South Carolina Sea Islands in 1902.
2017 – Mind/Game
The story of basketball superstar Chamique Holdsclaw goes a long way toward helping to destigmatize mental illness.
2016 – Love & Mercy
Love & Mercy is the story of Beach Boys singer/song writer Brian Wilson and his struggles with mental illness.
2015 – Girlhood
Marieme joins an all-girl gang in the projects of Paris and is slowly turned out of her shell by her three sassy neighbours. As she falls further under their bravado and volatile energy, she begins making brave and foolish choices.
2014 – Short Term 12
A 20-something supervising staff member of a residential treatment facility navigates the troubled waters of that world alongside her co-worker and longtime boyfriend.
2013 – In the Family
When his partner Cody dies in a car accident, Joey learns that their son, Chip, has been willed to Cody’s sister. In his now solitary home life, Joey searches for a solution. The law is not on his side, but friends are.
2012 – Take Shelter
Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.
2012-Atwone Fisher
Antwone Fisher, a young navy man, is forced to see a psychiatrist after a violent outburst against a fellow crewman. During the course of treatment a painful past is revealed and a new hope begins.
2011 – Louder than a Bomb
Louder Than a Bomb tells the story of four Chicago high school poetry teams as they prepare to compete in the world’s largest youth slam. By turns hopeful and heartbreaking, the film captures the turbulent lives of these unforgettable kids, exploring the ways writing shapes their world, and vice versa.
2010 – Vincent: A Life in Color
This awe inspiring documentary about a unique individual who is lore with the locals and what people are capable of is fascinating.
2010- The Soloist
A newspaper journalist discovers a homeless musical genius and tries to improve his situation.
2009 – Begging Naked
This is a story of survival and self-undoing. Against an unforgiving backdrop of homelessness and madness, Begging Naked shows the endurance of the human spirit at its most extreme.
2009- What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
A young man in a small Midwestern town struggles to care for his younger brother with an intellectual disability and his mother, who is struggling with obesity, while attempting to pursue his own happiness.
2008 – Canvas
A woman’s schizophrenia affects her relationships with her husband and son.