Cannes Film Festival to not go virtual, will collaborate with other movie galas

The organisers of the Cannes Film Festival have ruled out the possibility of a physical movie gala, while hinting that they will join hands with other festivals slated to be held later this year.

The 73rd edition of the premier festival had already been postponed from its original mid-May dates to late June and early July.

According to Variety, the annual event will unveil a selection of movies early June and collaborate with several festivals, including Venice, to present some films.

"As of today, a physical edition seems complicated to organize, so we are going forward with an announcement of films from the (initial Official) Selection at the beginning of June," said a spokesperson for the festival, confirming what Cannes' director Thierry Fremaux said on Sunday in an interview with Screen Daily.

Instead of going virtual, the festival will be organising a "redeployment 'outside the walls' (of Cannes), in collaboration with fall festivals", the spokesperson added.

In the interview, Fremaux also said that instead of revealing the entire slate of what should have been this year's Official Selection including out of competition and Un Certain Regard he will only announce a list of movies that were part of the roster and scheduled to be released in theaters between now and next spring.

These films will be labelled as 'Cannes 2020'.

Meanwhile, the selection process for next year's festival will start in the autumn. Some movies that were selected for this edition and have delayed their release by a year will be considered for the 2021 edition.

Cannes will be showing its "labeled" films at festivals such as Toronto, Deauville, Angouleme, San Sebastian, New York, Busan and Fremaux's own Lumiere festival in Lyon.

Fremaux added the idea with Venice was to go further and jointly present movies.

The Cannes Marche du Film's virtual edition is due to run June 22-26, alongside a US agencies-led virtual market.