The Cannes Film Festival, which was forced to cancel its 2020 edition in May due to the Covid-19 pandemic, has announced it will hold a special three-day physical event in Cannes from October 27-29
The festival also officially confirmed its intention to go ahead with its 74th edition in Cannes from May 11 to 21 2021.
October’s initiative will be a public focused event. It will preview four features from Cannes’s special 2020 Official Selection, which was announced back in June, as well as the short films selected in Competition and the Cinéfondation student film collection.
There will also be a jury and Palme d’Or for best short film.
The event will open with Emmanuel Courcol’s comedy-drama The Big Hit, starring Kad Merad. Memento Distribution is due to release the film in France in December.
The closing film will be Bruno Podalydès’s split identity comedy French Tech, which will screen in the presence of the director and lead actress Sandrine Kiberlain.
The other two Cannes label films are festival regular Naomi Kawase’s Two Mothers and Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s Beginning, which just won San Sebastian’s Golden Shell for best film, director, screenplay and actress.
“The collection of four films from the Official Selection, the short film competition, the film school competition, and the dinners and meetings epitomise the happiness we’ll all feel to be together in Cannes in October. The films of the Official Selection are currently playing to cinema-goers in France, in Europe and throughout the world. It’s a great sign to see them making a stopover in Cannes before we turn our attention to the 2021 season,” said Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux.
Cannes mayor David Lisnard said the event would hold particular significance for the city, which has seen its event sector decimated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We wanted the presence of the Festival de Cannes in 2020 to symbolise our fight on behalf of the events sector, which provides a living for hundreds of families, as well as the cultural impact for our city,” he said.
“It was imperative therefore that the festival show up in Cannes for this extraordinary event, which respects all the usual rules: quality screenings in front of a regular audience, in evening dress, on the famous red carpet.”
The French Riviera resort has lost close to an estimated $1b in revenue since March due to the cancellation of dozens of physical trade events and conferences in the city due to coronavirus, including MIPTV and MIPCOM, with the latter moving online.
Next year’s festival is due to open just two and a half weeks after the Oscars take place in Los Angeles on April 25, 2021.
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