Fest looks at forgotten films

A film that cost less than $200 to make is among the attractions at Roger Ebert’s sixth annual Overlooked Film Festival.

This year’s festival, which opens Wednesday in Champaign, Ill., includes a variety of big-budget movies and independent works such as “Tarnation” by Jonathan Caouette, which cost $187 to make on a computer.

Film restoration expert Robert Harris, who discovered a 70mm print of the 1962 Oscar-winning film “Lawrence of Arabia” in a studio vault and then restored it, will kick off the festival. He will explain how he found and restored the film.

The lineup also includes Gregory Nava’s “El Norte,” Buster Keaton’s masterpiece “The General” and the obscure Al Pacino drama “People I Know.”

Ebert, film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, started the festival in 1999 to call attention to movies he feels have been forgotten or ignored by audiences, critics and distributors.