The stars stayed home, their beach backdrop is closed and the prestigious grounds of the Cannes Film Festival have been repurposed as a homeless shelter.…
The stars stayed home, their beach backdrop is closed and the prestigious grounds of the Cannes Film Festival have been repurposed as a homeless shelter.
Cannes should have been buzzing with cinema glitterati on Tuesday, which was scheduled as the first day of this year’s film festival. But during the time of the coronavirus, the French Riviera resort is nothing but a ghost town.
The world’s biggest film festival was canceled for the first time since World War II.
A couple of mask-wearing residents sit on the edge of the empty promenade to catch the morning sun, dangling their feet above the sand and next to an “Access and Swimming Prohibited” sign. An elderly group play petanque quietly next to the deserted roads.
The iconic billboard reserved for each year’s festival poster instead framed a large “THANK YOU” for the health workers caring for people during the pandemic.
“I’m overcome with a great sense of melancholy and nostalgia,” Cannes Delegate General Thierry Fremaux told Screen Daily about the festival going dark.
