Northwestern University is hosting a three-day conference April 21-23 called Illuminating the Shadows: Film Criticism in Focus, with top critics from around the country discussing the past, present, and future of serious writing about film.  All sessions are free and open to the public.  The event also features four screenings, including Errol Morris’ new documentary, “Tabloid,” about a former North Carolina beauty queen who, in 1977, kidnapped her Mormon sweetheart and a racy pre-Hayes Code 1933 film from director Raoul Walsh called “Sailor’s Luck.”  Through on-stage discussions and introductions to a slate of critically acclaimed contemporary and archival films, Illuminating the Shadows will provide insight into the role film criticism, and film writing more generally, has in our contemporary, media-saturated cultural life and how critics and writers on film view the work they do.