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| Zurich and San Sebastian announce film markets Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festiva/Zurich Film Festival |
San Sebastian Film Festival and Zurich Film Festival have announced they are to host industry markets for the first time after the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of SXSW and the postponement of New York's Tribeca Film Festival this spring.
San Sebastian and Zurich's artistic directors José Luis Rebordinos and Christian Jungen made the announcement jointly today.
CAA Media Finance is supporting the initiative, which is backed by major independent film companies, including Wild Bunch and Film Nation.
San Sebastian is due to run from September 18-26 with Zurich following close behind, fro September 24 to October 4.
Rebordinos said: "For the San Sebastian Film Festival, the most important thing now is the health of film industry professionals and spectators. But we keep working with the aim of making the 2020 edition of the festival a reality in September.
“If the Festival can be held under normal conditions, because the health authorities allow it, we want this edition to serve as an opportunity for films that have not been able to be seen at the festivals for which they were originally selected, to be shown to an audience of buyers and distributors and, at the same time, for these professionals, representatives of the most important companies in the world film industry, to get to know the size of the San Sebastian Festival, its line-up and its activities focused on the film industry".
Jungen added: "We live in disruptive times which also shatter the traditional festival landscape and threaten Independent cinema. Many high-profile titles are orphans of a real premiere their cast and crew deserve. So we are happy to help out holding screenings for buyers together with our friends of San Sebastian.
"It is important to strengthen independent cinema and to help those titles in their launch for the Award Season. Zurich is one of the worlds financial capitals and an ideal place for a film market since it has a great infrastructure where you can do business in a leisurely atmosphere”.
