From the renowned to the local, events around the world have endured strenuous restructuring and rescheduling in light of the coronavirus outbreak. Yet, among the most prominent in the film industry, The Cannes Film Festival—an annual event that previews new films of different genres from around the world—has been canceled until June 2021. 

The decision to postpone the festival from June of this year, “comes following much deliberation with our partners and customers as well as consultation with public health officials, the mayoral office of Cannes and the French Authorities,” said Cannes Lions in its public statement.

“We acknowledge the challenging circumstances facing us all as a community – we have and continue to be in deep consultation with many of our customers and partners as we adopt our contingency plans. The health, safety and wellbeing of our customers, employees, sponsors and partners remains our first priority,” it added.

Once-excited attendees will be missing out on opportunities to network and recruit the industry’s top talent from around the world, as many companies send their top teams to work in Cannes. In addition to film creators, there are marketing, communications, experimental and creative professionals that continually immerse themselves in the highly regarded festival.

And most importantly, Cannes Film Festival is Hollywood’s largest movie market, where hundreds of independently financed films find a distributor. 

Solutions to help professionals connect during this trying time has gone into the virtual market. Marché du Film will virtually premiere films that were meant to happen in Cannes. 

The virtual market will include screenings and video meetings. Each theatrical screening will screen online and a second run will be available for people in different timezones. The new platform will be based on CInando’s technology and will have strict security measures. The video meetings will be done through the Marché de Film networking app, Match&Meet. 

The virtual market will be open only to participants that registered online for a Marché badge this year. 

The film festival’s response to the pandemic is creative and innovative for its efforts to support creatives around the world. 

Yet, not all filmmakers and sellers are on-board with virtual festivals. Aside from the excitement of dressing in gowns and walking down red carpets, the experience of receiving people’s honest reactions to their films is something that cannot be replicated virtually. 

Other reactions of organizers in opposition to the virtual option have been “physical festival” or “nothing”: raising consideration of pushing it further into August-September, affecting Venice and Toronto film festivals. 

In response, the festival says, “Nevertheless, since yesterday (April 15) evening we have started many discussions with professionals, in France and abroad. They agree that the Festival de Cannes, an essential pillar for the film industry, must explore all contingencies allowing it to support the year of Cinema by making Cannes 2020 real, in a way or another.”

For filmmakers, premiering their hard work on an iPhone is not what they had envisioned.  

“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,” questioned festival director Thierry Fremaux.

Despite the promised, high virtual security, there are still lingering concerns on piracy and rights issues when sharing the films. 

Cannes Film Festival has been occurring since 1946, right after World War II. Since then, the festival has been cancelled once in 1968 during the nationwide student riots, known as May 68. The protest was against capitalism, consumerism, American imperialism and traditional institutions. 

Filmmakers of the time included Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and Claude Lelouch, who showed solidarity with striking students and workers resisting Charles de Gaulle’s government.

Nonetheless, one year’s wait for the traditional Cannes Film Festival will be a wait well worthwhile.