The Cannes Film Festival, which filmmakers are over the globe look forward to, is now open for visitors and guests who have been vaccinated. The news from the European Union, which has reopened its borders to travelers from previously banned countries, has been well-received by movie lovers all over the world, especially by production houses, executives, and filmmakers from the United States and the United Kingdom who have been hoping to attend the 2021 edition of the film festival.
The French Government, which has outlined all the travel regulations during the period, has given permission for visitors who have been vaccinated only with any one of the European Union-approved vaccines – Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, who will be allowed to enter France under the revised regulations. However, the guidelines issued by the French Government do not qualify as ‘pressing grounds’ for travel, which means partially vaccinated or vaccinated with any other vaccines may face difficulties in attending the event.
Speculations about the impact of looser regulations on the regular Cannes attendance have begun. Although more than half of United Kingdom adults and over 40 percent of the United States population have been vaccinated with two doses of the vaccine, the rates of vaccination still remain different when compared to different regions and demographic groups. Visitors and filmmakers attending from Britain might also have to face a hassle upon their return to the United Kingdom since France is still on the list of ‘amber countries’ in the United Kingdom, which means that the returnees from the Cannes Film Festival will have to quarantine themselves for 10 days or pay for Covid – 19 testing to be released early.
Movie lovers had been disappointed in the previous edition of the film festival, when the board has decided against a physical event and had resorted to a limited screening of the selected movies. The latest reopening of the film festival means that more British and Americans can finally get something closer to a full-fledged international film festival after a long gap since the beginning of the Pandemic.
