Chaz Ebert

Chaz Ebert is the CEO of Ebert Digital LLC, publisher of the preeminent movie review site; also legal adviser and TV and movie producer at Ebert Productions. For twenty-four years, she shared a life with Pulitzer Prize-winner Roger Ebert. In their work to foster empathy through cinema, they established the Ebertfest Film Festival and the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies at the University of Illinois. Chaz has passionately continued to lead all events while nurturing film critics, filmmakers, and technologists through the Roger Ebert Fellowship. She awards the Golden Thumb and Ebert Humanitarian Awards to filmmakers who exhibit an unusually compassionate view of the world.

Chaz has been featured on Oprah, CBS Sunday Morning, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough, ABC, CBS, and NBC; and in the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, People, and EBONY magazine. Her civic passions include programs to help break the glass ceiling for women and people of color; and to provide education and arts for women, children, and families. As founder of Day4Empathy, Chaz is celebrated for spearheading efforts for kindness-induced change. In her pledge to foster the FECK Principles, she has also become a sought-out lecturer who has touched thousands of attendees at film events. Two special recognition awards include the 2010 Spirit of Compassion Award from Swedish Covenant Hospital Foundation and the 2011 Gilda's Club Chicago, Red Door Honoree. She was also honored with the 2022 FACETS Legend Award, 2022 Ruby Dee Humanitarian Award, 2011 Focus Achievement Award from Women in Film Chicago, and the 2019 Laureate of the Beethoven Spirit Award.