By Matt Neglia
In the wake of COVID-19, it is still a mystery what the various fall film festivals are going to do. Will they still take place? If so, to what extent? SXSW was cancelled and had some of its programming debut online. The same thing happened with the Tribeca Film Festival. However, most of the major films people had hoped to see at these festivals have been sitting on the shelf, waiting to see what new developments would come about from the pandemic. Now, the Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Sundance Film festival, Berlin International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, London Film Festival, Venice Film Festival and more have teamed up to launch We Are One, a free 10 day online film festival that will take place from May 29th to June 7th on YouTube. The line-up for this one of a kind film festival was announced today.
The list of movies represents over 35 countries and includes 23 narrative and 8 documentary features, 57 narrative and 15 documentary short films, 15 archived talks along with 4 festival exclusives and 5 VR programming pieces. The fest will include 13 world premieres, 31 online premieres and 5 international online premieres.
Feature films “Electric Swan” (curated from the Venice Film Festival), “Crazy World” (curated from the Toronto International Film Festival) and documentary “Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records” (curated from the London Film Festival) are all set to premiere. The fest will also see the world premiere of the documentaries “Ricky Powell: The Individualist,” “Eeb Allay Ooo!” & “Iron Hammer.” There will also be a lineup of specially-curated talks from past festivals as well as new discussions with filmmakers suchs as Bong Joon-ho, Steven Soderbergh, Guillermo del Toro, Jane Campion, Francis Ford Coppola & Claire Denis.
The fest will provide COVID-19 relief through donations to the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, UNHCR, Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, Leket Israel, GO Foundation and Give2Asia, among others. Audiences will be able to donate via a link on every film page.
Read the full festival schedule here.
What do you all think of this? Will you be participating in the festival on May 29th on YouTube? Let us know in the comments section below or on our Twitter account.
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