Palm Springs Film Festival cancels for 2021 amid COVID surge, bringing change to awards season
The Palm Springs International Film Festival is canceled for 2021, signaling potential changes to next year's film awards season as coronavirus cases again rise in the U.S. and across the globe.
Festival organizers announced Monday that the 32nd annual film festival, planned for Feb. 25 to March 8, will now take place in 2022.
However, the festival plans to celebrate this year's performances and films with an awards presentation on Feb. 25.
"These changes are being made to ensure the health and safety of our patrons, staff, filmmaker guests, volunteers and partners and to make sure we can have a memorable and enjoyable festival experience," the festival said in a statement.
Both the U.S. and Europe are in the grip of a massive coronavirus surge. European leaders ratcheted up pandemic restrictions last week as a second wave batters countries including Germany and France, home to the Berlin and Cannes film festivals, respectively. In the U.S., 44 states reported rising caseloads last week, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
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The move comes after the Oscars, which are scheduled for April 25, extended its eligibility window to the end of February, to include more movies. But uncertainty continues to surround movie theaters amid pandemic restrictions and economic fallout; the cinema chain Cineworld announced last month it would close all its theaters across the country, with no reopening date.
The Palm Springs event typically holds a prime position on the festival circuit calendar, held the first week in January to precede the Golden Globe Awards and the Oscar nominations voting deadline. Academy Awards organizers still expect about 300 submissions this year, with the start of voting pushed to February and ending in March.
The Palm Springs International Film Festival Society had already delayed its festival, which regularly draw tens of thousands to the region. Last year's Film Award Gala, attended by 2,500 guests, honored actors, actresses and directors that went on to win Oscars including Joaquin Phoenix, Renée Zellweger and Laura Dern.
The screening portion of the festival annually draws a lineup of new and celebrated international features and documentaries.
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Southern California, home to the Palm Springs film festival, has become an area of concern. Coronavirus cases are increasing at an alarming enough rate that much of the region is still operating under the state's strictest stay-at-home order. Under these rules, indoor movie theaters are not allowed to operate.
Across California as a whole, the number of new cases reported each day also continues to increase. Over the past week, the state has averaged 4,175 new cases per day. This comes after a plateau of cases in most of September and the first half of October.
The Palm Springs decision comes two months after the Venice Film Festival became the first major in-person cinema showcase of the coronavirus era, following the cancellation of Cannes amid other international festivals that opted to go mostly online this year.
The Venice film festival, which wrapped up Sept. 12, looked drastically different, with COVID-19 protocols in place and a notable lack of big Hollywood films.
Contributing: Paste BN