buzz: How did you first get involved in Ebertfest?

Britt: I came here in the end of 2001. I was hired as the assistant director of development for the College of Communications, which is now the College of Media, and this was just a little part of my job, so that’s how I got involved. And now I’m in my eighth year.

buzz: How close is your relationship with Roger Ebert when it comes to Ebertfest?

Britt: Roger and I and our director, Nate Kohn, we work closely every day, especially as we get closer to the fest, so I would say it’s very close just because there’s so many details to be worked out, and we just work, e-mail after e-mail after e-mail throughout the day.

buzz: What kind of stuff do you have to go over with Roger?

Britt: We talk about guests, we talk about who’s going to be on our academic panel discussions that are held at the Union, just anything and everything that comes up. We discuss details about Roger’s book signing, just a whole bunch of different things.

buzz: How did the Virginia Theatere become involved in Ebertfest?

Britt: Before I was here. The festival started in 1999; the festival has always been at the Virginia Theatre. So it’s just always been at the theater, and Roger has great memories of seeing movies there, and he wanted it at the Virginia Theatre.

buzz: What would you say Ebertfest brings to the University?

Britt: I think it brings a lot of recognition to the University. We involve students as much as we can. The Daily Illini produces our festival program, so students work on the festival program, students help volunteer at the Virginia Theatre, they can do panel discussions, they come to the movies. I think it just brings a lot of recognition, you know, it’s an international film festival, every piece of program material has the College of Media-University of Illinois on it, and that is out there everywhere.

buzz: What role do you have in booking the guests?

Britt: Roger and our director, Nate Kohn, they get the guests here, and then I kind of take over from that and follow up with hotel accommodations, airfare and I just take it from there. And then I have to get their bio and a headshot and different things like that for the festival program, and then that goes on our Web site, so I just follow up with everything, and then I assign a host to them that picks them up at the airport. I have a lot of involvement in it.

buzz: Do they fly into the Champaign airport?

Britt: Yes, we fly them into Willard.

buzz: Do you attend Ebertfest in its entirety every year?

Britt: Oh yes, I wouldn’t miss it for anything after all this work. But, uh, no, I do and sometimes I don’t get to see the films. I’m on the phone and different things like that, but I do try to see the films, but if not, I just rent them after the fact.

buzz: How many volunteers do you have this year?

Britt: We have a lot of volunteers this year; I think we usually end up with about 300. We rely heavily on volunteers; I don’t know what we’d do without them, and we have different levels of volunteering. We have a lot of students and people from the community who volunteer at the theater, but we also have people who serve as hosts, and those come from the community, and they’re the ones that take off the Wednesday through Sunday from work, and they go pick our festival guests up from the airport and take them to the theater, take them to the green room, take them to the parties, and we also have volunteers who distribute posters for me around town, coasters in the bars and restaurants, so there’s just different ways of anywhere from putting lanyards on the passes, so I have all kinds of people helping me.

buzz: Do you have any rough estimate of how many people attended Ebertfest last year?

Britt: Every year, depending on the number of films, we have roughly 18 to 20,000 attendees.

buzz: What film this year are you most excited about seeing?

Britt: I’m excited about them all, but I’m really interested in seeing Trouble the Water.