The powers-that-be have decided that South By Southwest will not be happening next week. The well-regarded film and music festival has, indeed, been canceled by the city of Austin due to concerns over the increase of Coronavirus cases around the globe [via press release].
It didn’t help that, before this announcement, Amazon Studios, Netflix, WarnerMedia, and Apple all pulled their employees, talent, films, and events from the festival. The billion-dollar tech conglomerates seemed to have had the final word in this regard as rumors began to swirl about the impending fate of this year’s edition which was going to world premiere titles such as Michael Showalter’s “The Lovers,” and David Lowery’s “The Green Knight.”
Where some of the films that were scheduled to premiere at SXSW go now is anybody’s guess, but, chances are the Toronto International Film Festival could handle more than a few titles in September. Meanwhile, we are still keeping a close eye on the Cannes Film Festival which could very well have the same fate as SXSW in the weeks to come.
SXSW would have happened between from March 13th to March 21st.