Hackman was also loved by the greatest film critic of them all: Roger Ebert. And Martin Scorsese ... a huge prize for the heads of the idiots who disfigured one of their own.

The festival was founded in 1999 by Roger Ebert, a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic who famously wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times. He passed away in 2013, leaving his legacy behind to his wife Chaz ...