Luca Zaia, governor of the Veneto region of Italy and Biennale board member, declared that the Venice Film Festival will take place as originally scheduled in autumn, from the 2^nd until the 12^th of September. The Lido event would mark the first prominent film industry event not recently cancelled or postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been no official communication from the festival itself, but Italy has set out some plans for easing its travel and business restrictions in the near future—including for cinemas.

Mr Zaia is on the board of directors of the prestigious Biennale di Venezia. According to the local media, he said that there will likely be fewer films for the 77^th edition due to global production freezes. The line-up and programme are usually made public in late July. Earlier on, in January, the festival announced that Kate Blanchett would be president of the main competition jury for 2020.

Today, we would have celebrated the end of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which was ultimately cancelled. However, organizers expect it to survive somehow later in the summer, probably with a presence in Venice, as well. Pierre Lescure, Cannes President, recently stated that the two festivals would ‘celebrate the relaunch of cinema in theatres’.

This past weekend, Italians were allowed to return to the beach. Starting Monday, fitness clubs, sports centres and pools will reopen, as well. Italy’s border restrictions will be lifted for European Union visitors from 3^rd June, and cinemas are set to open their doors from 15^th June, with specific social distancing measures in place.

Italy was Europe’s initial epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak. Almost 230,000 people were infected, and almost 33,000 have died as a result.

Despite many other festivals going the digital route this year in light of the coronavirus pandemic, both the Venice Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival have stated that they will not host their events virtually.

Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux insists that should the option to host the festival physically drop, they will look for other alternatives to showcase the films, but that they will categorically steer clear of the digital alternative.

‘(For) Cannes, its soul, its history, its efficiency, it’s a model that wouldn’t work. What is a digital festival? A digital competition? We should start by asking rights holders if they agree,’ Fremaux tells Variety.

Hinting towards a few titles to be highlighted in this year’s edition, Fremaux added, ‘Films by Wes Anderson or Paul Verhoeven on a computer? Discovering “Top Gun 2” or (Pixar’s) “Soul” elsewhere than in (a) theater? These films have been postponed to be shown on a big screen; why would we want to show them before, on a digital device?’

THIERRY FREMAUX © BRIGITTE LACOMBE

‘Directors of “films” are driven by the idea of showing their movies on a big screen and sharing them with others at events like festivals, not for their works to end up on an iPhone.

‘If all the festivals are canceled, we will have to think of a way to showcase films, to avoid wasting a year, but I don’t think a precarious and improvised alternative of Cannes or Venice — no sooner done than forgotten — would be the solution’, Fremaux further elaborated.

Venice Film Festival’s Alberto Barbera seems to be on the same page as Fremaux on this matter. He disclosed in an interview with Italian news agency ANSA over the weekend that he is currently not taking into consideration any digital options. In the interview, he was weighing in on the Toronto Film Festival’s co-heads Joana Vicente and Cameron Bailey’s statement that they were ‘looking at both on-site and digital innovations’ for their event.

ALBERTO BARBERA © ANDREAS RENTZ

‘Toronto is a different type of festival, not comparable to Cannes or Venice,’ said Barbera, who also added that although it’s unclear at this point how things will develop, they are not considering dropping the physical aspect of their event.

A spokesperson for Venice told Variety on Monday, ‘The Venice Film Festival cannot be replaced by an online event.’ He went on to add, ‘there is obviously the possibility that we use technology for some initiatives,’ but that at present ‘it’s too early for this to be decided.’

The decision to digitalize their events doesn’t come without its own share of challenges for the festivals that chose to go down this path. This new approach has given birth to concerns regarding piracy, distribution and rights, among other issues. Given the uncertainty of the current global crisis, how the organizers will choose to deal with these obstacles remains to be seen.

For now, the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival are going ahead with their plans to host their events in September, and the Cannes Film Festival is still considering to go forward with this year’s edition at a later date, possibly in June or July, having postponed their initial May event.