As predicted yesterday, the 2020 Cannes Film Festival has pulled the plug on the late June to Early July date it was aiming for the festival to take place this year.
According to a new statement released by Cannes 2020 organizers (via Deadline), the ban on public events in France until mid-July has made the postponement of the film festival “no longer an option.” The statement added that they are beginning to “explore all contingencies” for how to continue to have Cannes in a way that would satisfy and “support the year of cinema.”
What could possibly be done to save Cannes 2020 this year? Well, they’ve already brushed off the fact that they could go digital like Tribeca and SXSW have done this year. Maybe a more subtle online version could be in the works? With only selected press and industry getting their screener links at home? Nah. No way. After all, this is the Cannes Film Festival we’re talking about here, purists at heart, they’ve always refused to adhere to streaming, what with their two-year fight against Netflix becoming a hallmark of their identity and stance on maintaining the theatrical experience.
The festival said they hope to be able to “communicate promptly regarding the shapes that this Cannes 2020 will take” sometime soon. This cryptic messaging means the festival’s organizers would still want the festival to happen this year in some way, shape or form, but how can it happen if their stance on streaming has been so militant? That’s the million-dollar question.
Regardless, we have plenty of titles now looking for a new home on the festival circuit, that is if film festivals are even able to take place this year. This was the predicted lineup that I had conjured up in March from rumors, inside info and news articles:
Mia Hansen-Løve’s “Bergman Island”
Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Memoria”
Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta”
Leos Carax’s “Annette”
Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch”
Nanni Moretti “Tre Piani”
Nadav Lapid “Ahed’s Knee”
Francois Ozon’s “Summer of 85”
Edgar Wright’s “Last Night in Soho”
Ari Folman “Where is Anne Frank?”
Maiwenn's "ADN"
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Wife of a Spy”
Naomi Kawase’s “Come Morning”
Sean Penn’s “Flag Day”
Kornél Mundruczó’s “Pieces of a Woman“
Michel Franco’s “Lo que algunos soñaron”
Laurent Cantet’s “Arthur Rambo”
Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Petrov’s Flu”
Thomas Vinterberg’s “Druk”
Ulrich Seidl "Böse Spiele"
Ana Lily Amirpour’s “Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon”
Pete Docter’s “Soul”
One can conceivably theorize that many of these titles could just jump onto the next big European film festival, which would be the Venice Film Festival, which is set to take place from September 2nd to September 12th. But who are we even kidding here? Is Italy even going to be in decent enough shape to host such an event this year? They have been, per capita, the hardest-hit country in the world when it comes to the COVID-19 coronavirus. That means that the logical next step for most of these titles is either a bow at the Toronto International Film Festival (which could be digital this year) or waiting a whole year until Cannes 2021.
The film will stream for free, worldwide, on The Guardian's website in late November. That's a bold distribution move, and it tells you exactly what the filmmakers want here. They want eyeballs, as many as possible.