The Cannes Film Festival will be held from July 6 to 17 with strict security and Covid-preventive protocols in place. Wearing masks will be made mandatory, not just during the screenings but also on and around the red carpet, Variety reported.
The magazine publication spoke to Festival general secretary François Desrousseaux, who announced the official lineup of selections on June 4.
“Even if the health situation is improving, it won’t be as simple as in previous years. Our goal is to have an air-tight sanitary protocol that will not cause too much discomfort for attendees. The challenge there is to find a middle ground between safety and comfort,” said Desrousseaux.
With assistance from a local hospital, a 300-square meter tent will be set up and used as a testing laboratory to screen for Covid-19. Tests can be booked online to reduce contact.
“The logic is to avoid crowds so we’ll have bilingual online booking systems for testing,” said Desrousseaux, adding, “The lab is being sized up and staffed to ensure that there won’t be more than a 10-minute wait for each person.”
Health passes with a QR code for guests will be implemented from June 9, which will provide easy access with the help of vaccine, immunity, or test results.
To promote no-touch policy, digital scanning stations will be installed to scan the belongings of guests.While guests will be asked to maintain a distance of one metre, the fan zone in front of the venue, will be dropped to reduce crowding.
As per the guidelines, countries’ entry to the Festival will be divided into three categories- green, orange and red.
Guests from green countries including European nations, Australia, South Korea, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, New Zealand and Singapore, deemed as the safest, are allowed without restrictions and rigorous testing. The UK and the USA fall in the orange category and thus guests from these nations “will also be able to enter France without quarantine and a “compelling reason” for travelling if they have been fully vaccinated two weeks prior to their trip,” the report stated.
Guests from red category countries like South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, India, Turkey “will need to quarantine and have a compelling reason to travel, whether or not they are fully vaccinated”.
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Besides the total 24 films in the main competition and 12 in A Certain Regard, a section- Cannes Premiere- has been introduced to accommodate films that could not be entered into the main competition.
Leos Carax’s first English feature film Annette, featuring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, will premiere internationally at the Grand Théâtre Lumière in Cannes’ Palais des festivals, and will then enter the competition.
No Indian film has made it to the chase this year.
The 74th edition of the Festival will be held at the Palais de Festivals and will be broadcast by Canal+ in France and partnering cinema theatres.