Cannes side­bars offi­cial­ly can­cel their 2020 editions

The Cannes Film Fes­ti­val has been one of the film world’s most stub­born hold­outs when it comes to mak­ing the dif­fi­cult choice of self-can­ce­la­tion due to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. That could change tomor­row as fes­ti­val head Thier­ry Fré­maux deliv­ers a sched­uled address, but even if so, he’s already been beat­en to the punch of prudence.

Today brings the dis­cour­ag­ing news that the major side­bar sec­tions that play out par­al­lel to Cannes’ Offi­cial Selec­tion have col­lec­tive­ly decid­ed to shut down their plans for 2020 with an eye for a return to the fes­ti­val next year. The press release spec­i­fies that the Direc­tors’ Fort­night, the Crit­ics’ Week, and the ACID sec­tions have all shut­tered for the time being, leav­ing any remain­ing ver­sion of the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val glar­ing­ly incomplete.

Each year, the Direc­tors’ Fort­night and Crit­ics’ Week pro­grams pro­vide a plat­form for film­mak­ers unable, for what­ev­er rea­son, to land a slot in the mar­quee Offi­cial Selec­tion. Plen­ty of note­wor­thy film­mak­ers have found a home there; just last year, the Fort­night host­ed new films from Quentin Dupieux, Takashi Miike, Bertrand Bonel­lo, Robert Eggers and Lav Diaz. The ACID pro­gram goes one step fur­ther into obscu­ri­ty, bring­ing in unknowns with­out fes­ti­val expe­ri­ence for a valu­able break.

The rest of the fes­ti­val remains in jeop­ardy as well, with Cannes man­age­ment hav­ing announced just yes­ter­day that their hopes of ​“hold­ing the fes­ti­val in its orig­i­nal form” may have been undu­ly opti­mistic. They’d planned on shift­ing the fes­ti­val into the sum­mer with­out mak­ing any major alter­ations, but a recent decree from French Pres­i­dent Emmanuel Macron that all mass gath­er­ings would be banned until at least mid-July would seem to pro­hib­it that much.

Tomor­row will most like­ly bring a new devel­op­ment on this front, but in any case, the grad­ual dete­ri­o­ra­tion of the Cannes pro­gram stands as a grim sym­bol for the film world’s future. The cal­en­dar keeps emp­ty­ing out – the spring fes­ti­vals, the sum­mer block­busters, soon the fall fes­ti­vals, and who knows what else. It’s get­ting dif­fi­cult to find some­thing to look for­ward to.