Calendar: Feb. 27-Mar. 5, 2026
Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.
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THE BLOGFIDENTIAL TELETYPE | Film News You Can Use, C-U
What we’re seeing on our beat this week … Film festivals are the fan fave topics du jour as our feverish fingers clack away at the Teletype! Up front is this weekend’s forty-third iteration of the Insect Fear Film Festival, organized by the Entomology Graduate Student Association and overseen by its founder. Dr. May Berenbaum, which will take place tomorrow, Saturday, February 28, at its forever home on the University of Illinois campus, Foellinger Auditorium. The free all-ages event will begin at 5 p.m. with the children’s art gallery as well as a live and mounted invertebrate exhibit in the foyer, expand with awards and activities at 6 p.m., and segue into a “human-insect hybrid” program at 7 p.m. The media being presented this round is an episode of the Eighties kidvid animation, SECTAURS, and a low-budget 2009 creature feature, INFESTATION, directed by Kyle Rankin and co-starring Ray Wise. Richard Leskosky writes in the News-Gazette about the (partly unfounded) fear to be faced at this entomological exposé …
Our next observation is about the promo spots blooming on the socials for the gang of annual spring showcases that present student work and are organized, to various degrees, by students. UI has the Illinois Student Film Festival, which is scheduled for May 1 at the Spurlock Museum of World Cultures and is accepting material from enrolled students up until April 17; use either the link or QR code at this Facebook page to sign in and submit. Illinois State University has the Foxtail Film Festival, set for April 23-26 at the Normal Theater in Normal; young folks who quality to enter have until this Sunday, March 1, to do so using the guidelines and directions to be found on their FilmFreeway account. And, Southern Illinois University has the venerable Big Muddy Film Festival on deck for their forty-eighth program to be presented March 19-21 at the revitalized Varsity Theatre in Carbondale; their film selections are long set, but they program more broadly like a traditional festival than the others mentioned here and always make room to highlight the work of both current students and SIU alumni working in media vocations …
Chaz Ebert and Nate Kohn have revealed the first specifics about what “The Last Dance” of Roger Ebert’s Film Festival in Champaign will look like when the house lights go down on April 17-19 at the Virginia Theatre. Two of the eight features will be THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT, part in honor of its late director, Rob Reiner, and surely part in helping us remember what a competent if imperfect leader of democracy looks like, and NUREMBERG, part in respect of the tradition of compelling historical dramas, this one starring Russell Crowe and Rami Malek, and surely part in helping us remember what should happen when powerful individuals commit war crimes and spurn democracy. Also to be presented in a twist is a stage play in which the taping of an early episode of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel’s seminal television review show in Chicago is dramatized. Given today’s date, soon we should learn more …
To close, we caught a Facebook post from the all-but-dormant account of the Dead in Decatur Film Festival that it is rising from the grave to bring its genre- and gender-friendly program back with a target event date of February 2027. The array of deadlines (if not quite the event description) has been updated on FilmFreeway and it’s unclear where the event might be held after the last one in 2022 was relegated to an online presentation. Check it out and send in your questions to returning director Zelda Tindell … and that’s what we can reveal for today. Always remember – this is not just movies, it’s our lives.
CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History
20 Years Ago … Saturday, February 25, 2006: After the seventh issue of the Champaign film journal MICRO-FILM is published, Opteryx Press adapts its “C-U Confidential” local-zine section into a new internet variation, C-U Blogfidential. The first entry written by editor and publisher Jason Pankoke, dated 8:57 p.m., describes an intention of “[making] a minor splash creating a community history through cinema, one that we can definitely call our own,” with CUBlog as its potential epicenter. Topics to be covered in the following months include the Danville fantasy-comedy SHOW; Dreamscape Cinema’s first features, CRAB ORCHARD and DISCONNECTED; the fan- and convention-favorite spoof of video game tropes, PRESS START, from Dark Maze Studios of Champaign; the second episodes of BrainSmart Productions’ WEREWOLF CEMETERY and THE ADVENTURES OF THE SCREAMING APE, directed by Jason Butler; the infamous UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS VS. A MUMMY and lesser-known ROBOTMAN, made by the UIUC students of Illini Film & Video and directed by Chris Lukeman; a video adaptation of Antigone by the Creative Dramatics Workshop and its director, Robert Picklesimer; an empowering documentary called AN UPHILL CLIMB from Callan Films of Effingham; Blue Bassoon Pictures’ darkly funny crime spoof MERRY CHRISTMAS!; visits from UI alumni working in professional media like Fred Rubin and Michael Wiese; and numerous community and campus screenings such as a run of MICRO-FILM Movie Shows at the beloved bar Mike ‘n Molly’s in downtown Champaign. As of January 2026, CUBlog has published content keyed in to the movies of Champaign, Urbana, and the cities beyond in every single month since its launch over more than 1,700 postings. [R]
LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers
@ Foellinger Auditorium, UIUC, Urbana, IL
UI Entomology Graduate Student Association presents 43rd Insect Fear Film Festival* feat. SECTAURS, INFESTATION (2/28, 5 p.m. doors and activities, 6 p.m. announcements and awards, 7 p.m. cartoon and feature, free)
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
Chambana Film Society* presents “2026 Oscar-Nominated Short Films” series: 2/27: Animation (7 p.m.), 2/28: Documentary (7 p.m.), 3/1: Live Action (3 p.m.)
@ Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, UIUC, Urbana, IL
UI Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies presents ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER w/discussion (3/5, 7 p.m.)
NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area
@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
EPiC: ELVIS PRESLEY IN CONCERT (music documentary), K-POPS!, PEGASUS 3* (in Mandarin with English and Chinese sub), SCREAM 7, UMAMUSUME: PRETTY DERBY – BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA* (animé) (in Japanese with English sub), CRIME 101, GOAT (animation), HOW TO MAKE A KILLING*, I CAN ONLY IMAGINE 2, MIDWINTER BREAK*, PSYCHO KILLER, WUTHERING HEIGHTS (2/27 on), TWENTY-ONE PILOTS: MORE THAN WE EVER IMAGINED* (music documentary) (2/26-2/28), Fan Faves: GET ON THE BUS* (2/27-3/5), THE WOMAN KING* (2/27-3/5), and FRUITVALE STATION* (2/27-3/5), DOLLY sneak preview (3/3, 8 p.m.), THE BRIDE!, DOLLY, HOPPERS (animation), PROTECTOR (3/5 on) *single screenings daily
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
SCREAM 7, VISHU VINYASAAM (in Telugu with English sub), AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH, CRIME 101, EPiC: ELVIS PRESLEY IN CONCERT (music documentary), GOAT (animation), GOOD LUCK HAVE FUN DON’T DIE*, HOW TO MAKE A KILLING, I CAN ONLY IMAGINE 2, IRON LUNG, PSYCHO KILLER, SEND HELP, SOLO MIO, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, ZOOTOPIA 2 (animation) (2/27 on), HOPPERS sneak preview (2/28, 1 p.m.), SPIDER-MAN 2 (2/28, 7 p.m.; 3/1, 3 & 7 p.m.; 3/ 4, 7 p.m.), THE BRIDE!, HOPPERS (animation) (3/5 on) *single screenings daily
@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents “Spring 2025 Weekend Films” feat. FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2 (2/27-2/28, 7 p.m.; free w/i-card)
@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
The News-Gazette Film Series presents HOOSIERS (2/28, 2 p.m.)
Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!
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NOW PLAYING | The Cities Beyond
@ AMC Classic 12, Springfield, IL
Springfield Art Association presents Molly Schlich Independent | International Film Series feat. NIGHT CALL (3/1, 1 & 4 p.m.; 3/3, 7 p.m.)
@ The Fischer Theatre, Danville, IL
THE WIZ (2/27, 7 p.m.), “Tour the Fischer!” (3/1, 11 a.m., 1 & 3 p.m.)
@ The Lorraine Theatre, Hoopeston, IL
GOAT (animation) (2/27-3/1), HOPPERS (animation) (3/5 on)
@ The Normal Theater, Normal, IL
SINNERS (2/27-3/1), “Locked Inside: Exploring How School Restraint and Seclusion Harm Families” community discussion moderated by Dr. Charles Bell, Criminal Justice Sciences, ISU (3/3, 2 p.m.), ISU Queer Coalition, etc., present “Fired Up: The American AIDS Crisis on Film” feat. POISON w/discussion (3/4, 7 p.m., free), THE SECRET AGENT (3/5)
@ The Princess Theatre, Leroy, IL
GOAT (animation) (2/27-3/1)
NOW PLAYING | Midwest
For detailed and curated listings of Chicago-area film presentations and related events, please visit the fine folks at Cine-File and subscribe to their definitive “Cine-List” weekly blast. And for northern Illinois industry news, be sure to read Reel Chicago, Screen Magazine, and the Chicago Reader.
COMING SOON | Area-wide Events
3/9-3/13
“Spring Break (SB1) Camera Department Intensive”
@ Flyover Film Studios, Rantoul, IL
NEW! 3/13-3/23
16th annual Lake County Film Festival
@ College of Lake County/Gorton Center/Antioch Theatre, Grayslake, IL
3/16-3/19
“Spring Break (SB2) Camera Department Intensive”
@ Flyover Film Studios, Rantoul, IL
NEW! 3/19
Film Fanatic Movie Nights* presents THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE
@ Analog Wine Library, Urbana, IL, 7 p.m.
NEW! 3/19-3/21
48th Big Muddy Film Festival*
@ The Varsity Center, Carbondale, IL
3/20-4/12
20th Asian Pop-Up Cinema festival
@ AMC Newcity 14, Chicago, IL
4/3-4/10
28th annual Wisconsin Film Festival, Madison, WI
4/9-4/12
36th Onion City Experimental Film Festival, Chicago, IL
4/17-4/19
26th Roger Ebert’s Film Festival: “The Last Dance”*
@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
NEW! 4/23-4/26
2026 Foxtail Film Festival*
@ The Normal Theater, Normal, IL
NEW! 5/1
2026 Illinois Student Film Festival*
@ UI Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, Urbana, IL, 7 p.m.
9/7-9/17
44th Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival
@ Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema + Chicago Filmmakers, Chicago, IL
COMMUNITY & CAMPUS SERIES | Champaign-Urbana area
Illini Union Board presents “Spring 2025 Weekend Films”
@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL, 7 p.m. Fri. & Sat, free w/i-card
3/6-3/7: THE RUNNING MAN; 3/13-3/14: THE HOUSEMAID; 3/27-3/28: WICKED: FOR GOOD; 4/3-4/4: ANACONDA; 4/10-4/11: MERCY; 4/17-4/18: 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE
Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies events
@ Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, UIUC, Urbana, IL, 7 p.m. (unless noted otherwise)
3/30: THE WIZ screening
Springfield Art Association presents the 31st annual Molly Schlich Independent | International Film Series
@ AMC Classic Springfield 12, Springfield, IL, 1 & 4 p.m. Sunday + 7 p.m. Tuesday
3/8, 3/10: THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND
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Compiled by Jason Pankoke.
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“Calendar du C-U”
© 2026 Jason Pankoke/C-U Blogfidential
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