Great Movies
Chaz Ebert recounts her experience at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, from cell phone usage to panels to chats with critics and correspondents also attending the fest.
The famous red carpet has been cleaned, the movies on the beach have been closed, and the Cannes Film Festival for 2024 is complete. But here in France, the big events are just beginning. The Olympics come to Paris and surrounding areas this summer, and in anticipation, the Olympic Flame made an appearance on the red carpet this year with some of France’s top athletes.
One thing I noticed at the screenings this year was an increased use of cell phones during the films. This is strictly prohibited and frowned upon in Cannes, but I’ve also found that if you ask people politely to stop, they will apologize and turn off their phones.
Midway through the festival, I was honored to host a panel in the Roger Ebert Conference Center at the American Pavilion entitled “Purpose Driven Filmmaking: Empathy and the Movies”. My fellow panelists were Jacqueline Coley, Awards Editor at Rotten Tomatoes, Eric Pierson, Professor of Communication Studies at the University of San Diego, Darrien Gipson, Executive Director of SAGIndie, and Robert Daniels, Associate Editor at RogerEbert.com
All the attendees at the event received a free copy of my new book, “It’s time to give a FECK: Elevating Humanity through Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion and Kindness”…at least until we ran out of copies!
Each year, the Angieneux lens company presents an award to an accomplished cinematographer. Previous winners have included Vilmos Zsigmond, Roger Deakins, and Ed Lachmann. This year, the prize was taken home by Indian Director of Photography, Santosh Sivan.
One of the great things about traveling to film festivals year after year is not just seeing the movies, but also catching up with the good friends you make over the years. I had a wonderful chat with our Far-Flung Correspondent from Brazil, Pablo Villa.
Former Ebert Fellow Joshua Lee from Hawaii was also in Cannes this year, and I talked to him a bit about why he’s there and what’s happening with his film career.
Some other wonderful friends I’m so pleased to see year after year in Cannes are the Guest family: well-known actors Nick and Pamela and their daughter Elizabeth. Liz created a successful web series a few years ago called Guest Appearances. Now, she’s turned those characters into her first feature film, which just wrapped production. I was very happy to talk to the Guests about the process.
Maybe we’ll see Liz’s film at the Cannes Film Festival next year. Until then, that’s all for 2024. Thank you for joining us on another cinematic adventure. We hope to see you back on the Croisette in 2025. Au revoir!
Chaz is the CEO of several Ebert enterprises, including the President of The Ebert Company Ltd, and of Ebert Digital LLC, Publisher of RogerEbert.com, President of Ebert Productions and Chairman of the Board of The Roger and Chaz Ebert Foundation, and Co-Founder and Producer of Ebertfest, the film festival now in its 24th year.
