Cannes 2019 Video #8: Justice Singleton, Elizabeth & Pamela Guest and the Ebert Fellows

Here is Chaz Ebert's eighth and final video dispatch from the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, followed by a transcript of the video ...

Cannes 2019, Segment 8 Wrap-Up from The Mint on Vimeo.

While the 2019 Cannes Film Festival is over for this year, we’re topping it off with our annual re-cap segment and I'd like to tell you about some of the films you'll be able to see soon.

Shortly after the festival ended, it was announced that U.S. distributor Neon had acquired two highly-decorated films from Cannes and would be scheduling their releases for maximum awards attention. Best-screenplay winner in Cannes, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” from director Celine Sciamma, will be released in theaters December 6th. And the Palme d’Or winner, “Parasite,” from South-Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, will make it to theaters in L.A. and New York starting October 11th.

Additionally, while “Rocketman,” the bio-pic about Elton John, is currently showing in U.S. theaters, other upcoming dates for competition films include June 14th for Jim Jarmusch's “The Dead Don’t Die,” July 26th for Quentin Tarantino's “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” and October 4th for Pedro Almodovar’s “Pain and Glory.”

“The Traitor,” from Italian director Mario Bellocchio will be released on August 28th by Sony Pictures Classics. Prior to the festival, they had also acquired Ira Sachs’ “Frankie” and directly after the festival they picked up the Un Certain Regard title “The Climb” from director Michael Angelo Covino, although no release date has yet been announced for either of those films.

Last year, you may recall that we spoke with mother/daughter filmmaking team Pamela and Elizabeth Guest. They had brought a short film to Cannes starring Elizabeth about Pamela’s history with sexual abuse in Hollywood. This year, they are back again promoting season 2 of Elizabeth’s web series, “Guest Appearances.” I’m so happy to see women producing great material, and having their voices heard, whether through drama or comedy.

In 1991, John Singleton’s first film “Boyz n the Hood” played triumphantly in Cannes and even won him an Oscar nomination. I was so privileged to see the joy it brought to the director. This year, in the wake of his tragic passing, Cannes honored this extremely talented filmmaker by screening “Boyz n the Hood” at the Cinema on the beach, free to the public. His daughter, Justice, appeared on his behalf.

It is truly an honor to endow the Ebert Fellows program for emerging writers, critics, filmmakers, media personalities and technologists to encourage them to include principles of empathy, kindness, compassion and forgiveness in their work. A number of Ebert Fellows were able to come to Cannes this year, and I asked them to sit together and talk a bit about their experiences.

This year’s Cannes Film Festival had 21 films in competition selected from over 1800 feature film entries. And 19 of the 69 films in the official selection were directed by women. Will that number continue to improve? We'll need to wait until next year to find out. We hope to see you then!

In the meantime, as always, if you want to catch up with any of our coverage of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival simply go to RogerEbert.com/Cannes.

Thanks for watching! Au revoir!