Venice Film Festival attendees to wear facemasks, maintain social distancing

Marking the first major in-person event amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the 77th Venice Film Festival announced precautionary measures that have to be followed by its participants including them wearing facemasks during screenings. The attendees outside of Europe will also have to take a COVID-19 test. The guidelines for the Venice Film Festival, that is scheduled to take place from September 2 to September 12, were published on Thursday, August 18. 

The fans and general public will not be allowed on the premises during the red carpet of the festival and the attendees will have to buy tickets and reserve seats online well in advance.

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The seating capacity will also limit the traditional capacity as one seat on either side of the movie-goer will be vacant. Furthermore, at least nine gates have been set up at various spots around the Venice Lido that will measure the body temperature of the participants. 

All the celebrities at the Venice Film Festival will be arriving on transport arranged by the organising authorities in a bid to prevent the gathering of crowds, even within the official delegations. The festival-goers will be tracked in a way to ensure the possibility of contact tracing if necessary. 

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Italy is managing resurging of coronavirus infections

Despite being Europe’s epicentre at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, Italy managed to control the cases over time but is now dealing with a resurgence of infections. Venice Film Festival will be the first in-person movie event since the pandemic tightened its grip across the globe and major events were either cancelled or made virtual. 

The Toronto and New York festivals that will be hosted following the event in Venice, have been made largely virtual to avoid public health risk. Meanwhile, the Telluride festival has been revamped as a drive-in series in Los Angeles.

Italy had recently ended its stringent 10-week lockdown in May and people have now begun to trace their life back to normalcy. It is still mandatory for people to wear face masks to enter the movie theatres but are allowed to remove it once they are seated. 

(Image Credits: AP)

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