The Cannes Film Festival has been defiant these last few weeks, what with an impending cancelation looming large over the fest, due to the Covid-19 Coronavirus. The organizers have been continuing on with their work. There even was an April 16th announcement set forth to reveal the lineup for the 2020 edition. Otherwise, word has been hush-hush around the campfire over Cannes’ fate.
President Pierre Lescure did finally chime in yesterday, speaking to Le Figaro and mentioning that he remains “reasonably optimistic in the hope that the peak of the epidemic will be reached at the end of March and that we will breathe a little better in April” but also admitting that the festival will cancel if the coronavirus does not improve in France by next month.
My two cents on this; Covid-19 is an unpredictable virus, Why cancel Cannes now when you can reassess the situation and just do it in April. There’s too much at stake for the organizers to jump the gun in March. What if the number of cases starts to falter in April and then even more so in May. “Oh well, too bad we canceled Cannes two months ago” ...
Again, I stress, there is absolutely no point to cancel it this far ahead. If it happens, it’ll be in April. Fremaux will wait as long as he possibly can to see how the situation develops. However, if I were a betting man then, yes, Cannes will be canceled next month.
My guess is that Cannes announces its lineup before it gets canceled, just to officially show what would have been in competition — that would, ensuingly, give fests like TIFF and NYFF an easier time to curate their own lineups.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.