Mohsin Soomro
Where Coronavirus is affecting all-kind of activities in the world, it is now being feared that the annual Cannes International Film Festival, to be held later this year, could get cancelled.
The mega film event is scheduled to be held on May 12. However, the festival president Pierre Lescure has expressed his concerns over the opening of the event owing to the virus epidemic saying that the organisers could ‘skip’ this year’s edition.
“We remain reasonably optimistic in the hope that the peak of the epidemic will be reached at the end of March and that we will breathe a little better in April. But we are not oblivious. If [the situation does not improve], we’ll cancel,” Lescure was quoted as saying by a French newspaper.
Preparations for the festival were already in the middle with the lineup being announced on April 16. However, chances of the event being held on the said date are getting dim. Lescure, in an interview, also revealed that ‘Cannes festival was not insured against the loss of revenue that would result from the cancellation as the mega film event is not covered by Cannes’ insurance policy.’
If the situation of ongoing pandemic worsens, the possibility of cancellation of the gala could turn into the actuality. This won’t come as a surprise because on Wednesday, a leading European festival, Series Mania, which was scheduled to be held on March 20, also got cancelled because of the coronavirus.
Not only that, but the famous Louvre museum of Paris also announced that it was restricting entry to the world’s most visited museum following the non-improving situation of the epidemic in the country and in the rest of the world.
Recently, Hollywood actor Tom Hanks took to Instagram to announce that he and his wife Rita Wilson were tested positive for coronavirus in Australia and remain in isolation before getting back to the US.
