The Berlin International Film Festival may be Held Virtually

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According to recent reports the 71^st Berlin Film Festival may be held on the virtual platform for the upcoming year. The prestigious film festival is renowned for the films screened and honoured at the event. The organizers of the 2021 edition of the internationally renowned event are thinking of delaying the festival due to the resurgence of Covid cases in Germany.

Onsite or Virtual Event?

The hitherto existing information available stated that the organizers of the event planned a physical event like most other years to be held from the 11^th to 21^st of February 2021. The final plans for the event will be announced by its organizers next week.

However, the recent surge of cases has them leaning towards favouring an alternative strategy. Germany has entered a strict lockdown phase from Wednesday onwards. Schools, and shops have been closed in the hope to control the spread of the virus. Prior to the Christmas celebrations, private gatherings have also been limited to two households with a maximum of 5 members. The Berlinale proposed plans of postponing the festival to April next year, but the festival government- that provides the festival’s maximum funding- refused this idea. However, if this happens the event will mainly be a European one, as April would still be too early for international travel.

The New Normal

Instead, the organizers are planning to host a competition section in the virtual format in early March. Moreover, other ideas are also in the mix. They are planning to host a mini-festival event with a series of onsite world premieres for early June. In the previous edition of the festival, it had participants from 132 countries. The event was a grand affair, where as many as 341 films were screened in a public programme and 732 were shown in the European Film Market. This year the European Film Market that runs alongside Berlinale is also expected to go online. The forum had earlier announced plans of integrating its online events and market events for the 2021 edition. It now seems evident that all entertainment events will follow the path opted by the Cannes International Film Festival that happened in France in October, just before the country announced another lockdown phase.