The Venice film festival is still planning to run in early September as usual, despite the problems that have beset other film festivals due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In an interview with news agency Ansa, Roberto Cicutto, president of the Venice Biennale, which oversees the film festival, confirmed it would go ahead on 2 September as planned. Meanwhile, the Biennale’s theatre and dance festivals, which were due to take place in June, would be postponed.
Cicutto suggested that a “semi-liberation” of Italy’s lockdown would enable the film programme to go ahead. He said event simulations were taking place, “but we will have to wait to know the conditions to be met. We do not have a glass ball.” He also suggested that the festival could also operate “extraterritoral” initiatives – presumably online – that would work alongside physical screenings.
Cicutto appeared to pour cold water on the idea that Venice would somehow collaborate with the Cannes film festival, which recently conceded it would be unable to go ahead in its “original form” in its traditional mid-May slot. He said he was “disconcerted” by Cannes’ general delegate, Thierry Fremaux, who, Cicutto said, “does not say what he wants to do”. He added: “If Cannes is still thinking about it, there is no dialogue.”
