Val Kilmer’s Children Attend Cannes Festival to Promote ‘Val’ Documentary

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The documentary ‘Val’ follows legendary actor Val Kilmer’s career and recovery following his throat cancer battle — find out more

Sibling style! Val Kilmer’s children, Mercedes and Jack Kilmer, attended the 2021 film festival on Wednesday, July 7, to promote his new documentary.

Mercedes, 29, and Jack, 26, walked the red carpet in France alongside the documentary codirectors, Leo Scott and Ting Poo.

While their father was not in attendance, his children stood in for him on the red carpet. Mercedes wore a glamorous black gown with a dramatic cape on one shoulder, while her brother paired a black blazer and white shirt with jeans.

The siblings are credited as producers on the new documentary, Val, which chronicles the 71-year-old actor’s career and cancer battle. The documentary premieres in theaters on Friday, July 23, and via Amazon Prime on Friday, August 6.

“I’ve lived a magical life and I’ve captured quite a bit of it,” the Top Gun actor says in the trailer for the film, which includes a look at his experiences on film sets, his childhood and more. The movie also includes never-before-seen clips from over 40 years in the film industry.

In the trailer, the Batman Forever actor discusses his throat cancer recovery, sharing “I was recently diagnosed with throat cancer. I’m still recovering, and it is difficult to talk and to be understood. But I want to tell my story more than ever.”

The filmmaker uses a voice box device to speak as he details his cancer recovery journey.

“I’ve tried to see the world as one piece of life,” he adds. “It’s a story about my life that is also not my life.”

To promote the clip, The Doors star shared a few words via Twitter. “It feels like yesterday and yet it has been a lifetime. As I write this, my documentary is getting ready to premiere at Festival De Cannes. And as grateful as I am for being selected with this high honor, I look forward most to sharing my life’s story with all of you,” he wrote on Tuesday, July 6. “Here’s to giving every day the opportunity to be the most beautiful of your life.”

Prior to filming Val, Kilmer long denied he had throat cancer before confirming his diagnosis in 2017 during a Reddit AMA.

“[Michael Douglas] was probably trying to help me cause press probably asked where I was these days, and I did have a healing of cancer, but my tongue is still swollen altho healing all the time,” the actor wrote at the time. “Because I don’t sound my normal self yet people think I may still be under the weather.”

In June 2018, his Top Gun: Maverick costar Tom Cruise told Extra that Kilmer was “doing really well” and how “special” it was to work together again.

Scroll down to see photos of Mercedes and Jack at Cannes.