Antonio Banderas, May 25, 2019 in Cannes. – LOIC VENANCE / AFP
Cannes festival will not be held “on schedule” from May 12 to 23 due to the epidemic of
coronavirus, but could be postponed to a later date, its organizers announced Thursday evening in a press release.
Due to the health crisis and the development of the French and international situation, the Festival de Cannes will no longer be able to take place on the dates planned, from May 12 to 23. More info # Cannes2020 ???? https://t.co/peLmfw0gQW pic.twitter.com/SVWPasvU23
– Festival de Cannes (@Festival_Cannes) March 19, 2020
“Today, we have made the following decision: the Cannes Film Festival will not be able to be held on the scheduled dates, from May 12 to 23. Several hypotheses are being studied in order to preserve their progress, the main one of which would be a simple postponement, in Cannes, at the end of June – beginning of July 2020, “said the press release.
“As soon as the evolution of the French and international health situation will allow us to assess the real possibility, we will make our decision known,” said the press release.
A decision which will be taken in consultation with the State, the City of Cannes (south of France) as well as the professionals of the cinema, underline the organizers who express their “solidarity” with the people affected by the coronavirus. The 2020 edition must have director Spike Lee as president of the jury.
The “decision that will be necessary”
After the publication in mid-March of an article evoking an outright cancellation, the festival had assured that no decision had been made, postponing until mid-April, when the organizers had to reveal their selection of films in contention for Golden Palm.
The festival “studies with attention and lucidity the evolution of the national and international situation in consultation with the City of Cannes and the CNC” (National Center of Cinema and Animated Image). “They will take together, when the time comes, around mid-April, the decision that will be necessary,” he said then on Twitter. “We remain reasonably optimistic in the hope that the peak of the epidemic will be reached at the end of March and that we will breathe a little better in April,” said Pierre Lescure, its president, at the beginning of March.
