Lo spettacolo deve continuare!
The Venice International Film Festival intends to stick with its September 2nd launch date, according to Luca Zaia, president of the Veneto region of Italy. It is in Veneto where one finds the canals and gondolas of Venice, as well as the Palazzo del Cinema di Venezia, a theater on a seven mile barrier island known as The Lido in the Venetian Lagoon. It’s one heck of a spot to throw a party, and no one wants to be the one to cancel it.
While Italy, specifically the northern region, was the first location in Europe hit especially hard by the coronavirus pandemic, new cases have trended significantly downward, and the country will open its borders to European travelers on June 3rd.
Zaia’s statement concerning the film festival comes after an announcement that an architecture festival, intended to be concurrent with the film festival, has been pushed to 2021. That event, however, necessitated the construction of new pavilions, which could not make the deadline.
Cate Blanchett was previously announced as this year’s festival jury president.
The Venice Film Festival began in 1932, making it the world’s first film festival (though it is not recommended to look too closely at who were some of the early winners.) Working in unofficial tandem with the Telluride Film Festival, the end-of-summer/early-fall scheduling marks the beginning of awards season, the audience-facing parade of glamor, conversation and celebration that is an essential cornerstone of our current entertainment industry.
Venice 2019 saw its top prize, the Golden Lion, go to Todd Phillips’s Joker, 2018’s went to Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, and 2017’s went to Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water.
Previous statements from organizers suggested they had little interest in going with a “virtual festival,” and an interview with the head of the Cannes Film Festival earlier this month suggested that a “Cannes Out-of-Doors” program might see titles that would have debuted this May in the south of France appearing in Venice.
Zaia’s statement comes just as many theater producers and concert promoters in the United States admitted they’ve all but thrown in the towel on 2020, with eyes already focused on 2021.
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