The Year Of Festivaling Dangerously

With the release of the Toronto International schedule a couple weeks ago, the unveiling of the Telluride un-schedule today, Venice's refusal to do any streaming for media or anyone else, and New York announcing that it will open with a TV series (not unlike TIFF opening with a movie The Academy apparently won't qualify as a movie), the picture of just how much of a non-starter (save Tenet and a Zhao or two) this September is going to be for cinema lovers.

What surprises me is that it is getting more frustrating, not less.

The overlap between the "cooperative" Venice and Telluride is four titles in the Venice competition and two more in the Horizon section. Pending the New York list, 22 of the 29 of the Telluride selections have no North American festival placement scheduled in 2020, with Venice failing to offer streaming of any kind for their features.

And don't look to Toronto to alleviate the problem. Only seven Venice titles are scheduled for TIFF.

But hey... Going to Venice is now a …