The Covid-19 pandemic claimed more film festivals for 2020 over the past few days as organizers for France's Annecy Animation Festival, the Munich Film Fest and the Melbourne Film Fest all announced cancellations of their 2020 editions in the days since my last blog post.
Annecy was scheduled to run June-15-20 and has, on occasion, been the launch pad for animated films that would then make a stop at Telluride. Story here from The Hollywood Reporter.
Munich was scheduled to run from June 25-July 4 (which has been the general window that Cannes has purportedly looked at as a re-scheduling window). Story here from Deadline.
Melbourne had been scheduled August 6-23. That's uncomfortably close to the start dates for the Telluride/Venice/Toronto window. Story here from Deadline.
Telluride's dates: Sept. 4-7
Venice dates: Sept. 2-12
Toronto's dates: Sept. 10-20
Re: Venice...see below
CANNES AND VENICE SAY NO TO FULL ONLINE FEST
Alberto Barbera, the Venice Film Fest head is reported to have ruled a completely digital version of that fest. The Variety story reports that some "technology for some initiatives" hasn't been ruled out but he's also quoted as having said that Venice "cannot be replaced bu an online event".
As I have previously written, the Toronto Fest has begun preparations for some digital/online presentations as a possible part of TIFF.
The Venice story originated with this exclusive linked from Nick Vivarelli at Variety.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, media reports were all over the news that Cannes director Thierry Fremaux has also ruled out replacing the Cannes' physical experience with an online experience. Fremaux is quoted in Variety:
“(For) Cannes, its soul, its history, its efficiency, it’s a model that wouldn’t work. What is a digital festival? A digital competition? We should start by asking rights holders if they agree."
Fremaux is further cited saying:
“Directors of ‘films’ are driven by the idea of showing their movies on a big screen and sharing them with others at events like festivals, not for their works to end up on an iPhone,"
“If all the festivals are canceled, we will have to think of a way to showcase films, to avoid wasting a year, but I don’t think a precarious and improvised alternative of Cannes or Venice — no sooner done than forgotten — would be the solution.”
The complete Variety article is linked here.
HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE TALKS FALL FILM FESTS
Jeff Wells/Hollywood Elsewhere put up an interesting piece on Sunday called "Which Fall Film Fests, If Any" in which he assesses where he thinks each of the four major film fests (TFF, TIFF, NYFF, Venice) are in as far as what they might look like.
Among them, he seems the most bullish on Telluride and less so on both Venice and New York. Toronto seems to be somewhere in the middle.
Here's Wells specifically talking Telluride:
"The smaller, eternally cooler Telluride Film Festival might work out, at least theoretically. Especially if Tom Luddy and Julie Huntsinger are extra careful about not allowing each and every seat to be occupied and are perhaps even open to staging the festival a week or two later than usual, especially if the coronavirus fade doesn’t begin until July or, God forbid, early August".
The complete post is linked here.
Additionally, here's Anne Thompson's Indiewire story about Oscar contenders, the pandemic and the film fest trail that Wells references in his piece.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com
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