Ebertfest sets screenings with Ava DuVernay and ‘The Fugitive’ director

The directors of the current release “A Wrinkle in Time” and the Chicago classic “The Fugitive” will be among the guests at next month’s Roger Ebert Film Festival in Champaign, planners announced Monday.

“Wrinkle” filmmaker Ava DuVernay will present her Oscar-nominated 2016 documentary “13th,” exploring mass incarceration in the context of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.

The festival’s late co-founder, Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert, was a key supporter of DuVernay and praised her early indie films “Middle of Nowhere” and “I Will Follow.” She went on to direct the best picture nominee “Selma” and create the OWN series “Queen Sugar.”

“The Fugitive,” hailed by Ebert as “one of the best entertainments of the year” at its release 25 years ago, will open the festival on April 18. Director Andrew Davis (“A Perfect Murder,” “Holes”), a Chicago native, will participate in a Q&A after the screening.

In addition to DuVernay, two other female African-American directors will attend with films from their archives. Amma Asante will show the 2014 period piece “Belle,” inspired by a real-life mixed-race woman who promoted abolition in England.

And Julie Dash will bring 1991’s “Daughters of the Dust,” a family drama set in the Gullah community of coastal South Carolina.

Ebertfest will continue through April 22 at the Virginia Theatre. Passes are available now at www.ebertfest.com, and tickets for individual movies will go on sale April 2.