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SALISBURY, MD—The Salisbury Film Society (SFS) presents the documentary Life Itself 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 1, in Fulton Hall 111. 

Hoop Dreams director Steve James creates a portrait of influential Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert. Officially an adaptation of Ebert's bestselling memoir of the same name, the documentary uses Ebert's valiant struggle with cancer as a structural device to examine his many career accomplishments. As a series of flashbacks take us through Ebert's colorful life and times, James periodically returns to his subject's traumatic last days in the hospital, where his wife Chaz and other loved ones prepare to say their last goodbyes. The product is a respectful reflection on the life and death of the critic whose passion for film was obvious in each review written.

“A paradoxical and vitally overflowing character emerges: a compassionate moralist with vast appetites, a raucous public performer whose confessional candor had a nearly religious purity,” said Richard Brody of The New Yorker.

The SFS series is co-sponsored by the Salisbury Wicomico Arts Council (SWAC) and SU’s Charles R. and Martha N. Fulton School of Liberal Arts. A group discussion follows the screening.

Tickets are $9, $8 for SWAC members, free for college and university students with ID. For more information call 410-543-ARTS (2787) or visit the SWAC website at www.543arts.org.