Illinois Governor Richard B. Ogilvie lends his support to the Festival, writing “too often, the avant-garde image of the filmmaker has been interpreted as antithetical to the mid-American ethic. But that is a view which disregards an essential element of that ethic: its firm foundation in the concept of individual freedom. Film is free, as America is free.” 15 years of state grants would follow. The Festival features its first all-critics jury, with banter and barbs exchanged between the Chicago Sun-Times’s Roger Ebert, the Chicago Tribune’s Gene Siskel, Chicago Today’s Mary Knoblaugh, and the Chicago Daily News’s Sam Lesner.[…]