Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the Cannes festival and director of the Lumière Institute in Lyon, publishes the book "Judoka".

Invited on this occasion of the program "Culture Médias", he confirms that the Cannes international film festival should indeed take place this year, after its cancellation in 2020 because of the Covid-19.

INTERVIEW

The Covid-19 got the better of its 2020 edition. The Cannes Film Festival will be back in 2021. Guest of 

Culture Médias 

for his book 

Judoka

, Thierry Frémaux confirms his desire to maintain international competition for films.

The general delegate of the Cannes festival, and director of the Institut Lumière de Lyon, specifies the date on which the festival should be held, usually organized on the Croisette in the heart of May.

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The "rumor" of fall 2021

At the end of January of this year, Thierry Frémaux announced that the 2021 edition would not take place in May, but in July.

"It is not really a postponement", specifies the general delegate of the festival.

"We decided to do Cannes at the beginning of July, from July 6 to 17. There is also a rumor that we would go in the fall. No."

And indeed, the doubt persisted as to the date of the Cannes festival 2021, after Thierry Frémaux raised with Le

Figaro

the possibility of making the festival in the fall.

"I said that it was if the situation deteriorates", nuance Thierry Frémaux.

"We are sometimes taken for people who are a little oblivious"

But for the general delegate of the Cannes festival, this plan B is very far from being topical.

"We said it, because if we do not do it, if we do not put 'ifs', we are sometimes taken for people who are a little unconscious," he says.

"Cannes will take place. We can feel that quite well."

Thierry Frémaux therefore recalls that his confidence for the July deadline does not ignore "a lot of caution, respect and understanding" imposed by the health crisis.

"We still feel that things are moving a little on the side of museums, theaters and cinemas", he observes, also counting on "the arrival of vaccines and the beautiful days."