The film industry is looking to Italy today as the Venice International Film Festival kicks off a physical festival that will probably become the template on how to hold film festivals as the global coronavirus pandemic continues to rage.
Variety reports that the Venice International Film Festival kicks off today with a number of celebrities expected to make an appearance on the festival’s red carpet. Among the names are France’s own Ludivine Sagnier, Matt Dillon, Tilda Swinton, and Cate Blanchett. The stars will be walking in front of the festival’s 120 accredited photographers.
Aside from these celebrities, the Venice International Film Festival will also play host to artistic directors of other European film events as a show of solidarity for the other festivals that have had to cancel because of the global coronavirus pandemic. Among those visiting the Venice Film Festival are Thierry Fremaux of the Cannes Film Festival, Carlo Chatrian of the Berlin Film Festival, and Lili Hinstin of the Locarno Film Festival.
Deadline has a blow-by-blow account of the events leading to the Venice International Film Festival’s opening, describing some of the measures put in place by festival organizers to avoid making the event a coronavirus hotspot.
According to Deadline’s reporter, temperatures were checked before entering the festival, and face masks were also required of staff and attendees. Acquiring press passes required talking to staff through a plexiglass wall.
Tickets to the movie screenings now have to be reserved online so that crowd control and social distancing could be maintained. The reporter notes that the process can take anywhere from 20 to 25 minutes.
These changes are just some that the festival organizers previously revealed. Other changes put in place include the scrapping of the festival’s Sconfini section, which feature arthouse films, genre films, experimental works, television series, and cross-media productions.
The Venice Classics section was also transferred to the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival, which was held last week in Bologna, Italy.
Two outdoor Arenas have also been introduced to help reduce the number of screenings inside the Lido. Movies will also be screened at Venice’s Cinema Rossini and Mestre’s Centro Culturale Candiani.
Italy, for the most part, has been able to curb the global coronavirus pandemic in their country, which is why it is now able to hold an event as big as a film festival. However, it is not clear whether other countries will be able to do the same as the global coronavirus pandemic continues to rage.
According to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 dashboard, there are now 25,327,098 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide as of Sept. 1. The number of people that have died because of COVID-19 is now at 848,255.