Venice Film Festival To Stick With 50% Capacity In Cinemas; UK Delegates Facing Quarantine

Tom Grater
·2 min read

Venice Film Festival will stick with last year’s coronavirus protocols, director Alberto Barbera confirmed during this morning’s lineup announcement.

The 2020 edition of the fest became the first major event of its type to stage a significant physical edition during the pandemic, and was widely celebrated for successfully implementing protocols including testing, temperature scanning, enhanced cleaning and distancing.

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In theaters, capacities were restricted to 50%, which will again be the case this year. Italian cinemas are operating with 50% capacity limits anyway. The government has also announced that from August 6 cinema-goers will need to present a ‘Green Pass’, which displays vaccination status (one dose is accepted) or a negative test taken in the last 48 hours.

Travel rules for international delegates are at present largely straightforward, unless you are traveling from the UK or a handful of Asian nations.

As things stand, UK delegates will have to quarantine for five days regardless of vaccination status, and will have to test negative after that period. There is a potential exemption for those entering Italy for a ‘proven reason of work’ but this only applies for trips shorter than 120 hours, that could be applicable for film delegates but is likely to be less useful for journalists. Travelers from Brazil, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are currently unable to enter Italy.

EU citizens and residents can enter Italy without quarantining, as long as they can display an EU Digital Covid certificate that shows either full vaccination status, a recent negative test, or that they have recovered from a recent infection.

Visitors from the wider Schengen area, Israel, Canada, Japan and the U.S. will also avoid isolation upon arrival as long as they can present a ‘Green Pass’ issued by their home authorities that meets the same criteria as above.

The various rules could change significantly between now and September 1. It is possible that Venice will seek to secure an isolation exemption from the Italian government for UK delegates, as Cannes did recently.

Speaking at today’s event, Venice President Roberto Cicutto said he hops the festival “could be more relaxed” with its Covid protocols this year but acknowledged that the current restrictions don’t reflect that.

“The Green Pass should allow us to be safer,” he commented, “What we are experiencing now is a great interest and desire to be here. There will be an increased presence from press. We hope we will have a large presence of delegations for the films.”

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