Lumière Film Festival To Stay The Course & Stick To Its October Schedule In France

Thierry Fremaux doesn’t just help run the Cannes Film Festival. He’s also one of the heads of the Lumière Film Festival that happens each fall. And while he wasn’t able to will the 2020 Cannes Film Festival into existence (COVID-19 had other plans), it appears that Fremaux isn’t going to let the pandemic ruin his other French film event.

The organizers of the Lumière Film Festival recently announced that plans for this year’s event in the fall are set to go on without delay, beginning on October 10. And in addition to announcing the dates of the event, the festival also revealed that it will be honoring the works of American director Clarence Brown and French filmmaker Michel Audiard. Lumière will showcase restored versions of films from these artists, as well as other works from their catalogs.

In years past, the festival has given its Lumière Award to filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Catherine Deneuve, Wong Kar-wai, Quentin Tarantino, and Martin Scorsese.

And like many of the fall festivals, this year’s Lumière will abide by the physical restrictions associated with the health crisis to ensure that participants are kept safe. But even still, the festival is hoping to attract filmmakers, exhibitors, journalists, volunteers, and the general public to the event.

Lumière joins Venice, TIFF, NYFF, and other fall film events that have assured film fans that they will not be canceled due to COVID-19. With the entire spring and summer film festival slate canceled, people have been wondering when it will be feasible for filmmakers to screen their new works at festivals, and as of now, it appears that there will be plenty of opportunities this fall. Of course, there is the very large, lingering caveat that the pandemic could alter these decisions if there is another major outbreak that shuts down the entire world yet again.

But as of now, the 2020 Lumière Film Festival is expected to run from October 10 to October 18.