The 60th anniversary of the international television festival will now take place in June 2021.
The Monte-Carlo Television Festival is the latest industry event to fall victim to the new coronavirus.
The TV confab, held every summer in the Mediterranean city-state, on Thursday said it has canceled its 60th anniversary edition out of health concerns amid the pandemic. The next Monte-Carlo festival will take place next June.
"We have been confronted with an unprecedented situation which is unfortunately currently depriving us all of our freedom for an indefinite period of time," said festival CEO Laurent Puons. "It is with great regret that I am obliged to cancel the 2020 edition of our Television Festival in June. We must all take up our responsibilities to protect what is most precious: our health, that of our loved ones and of our festival-goers."
The 60th edition of the Monte-Carlo Television Festival is now rescheduled for June 18-June 22, 2021.
This year's edition was set to open with the world premiere of the Studiocanal-produced thriller Shadowplay, starring Taylor Kitsch and Michael C. Hall.
The festival is the latest industry event to be postponed or called off amid the coronavirus crisis. French TV festival SeriesMania and Cannes' television market MIPTV shifted to online-only versions and the South By Southwest (SXSW) and Tribeca Film Festivals were scrapped. The 2020 Cannes Film Festival has been pushed back from its original date in late May.
Films and TV series that had scheduled premieres are now scrambling to adjust their release and marketing plans. Earlier this week, the San Sebastian and Zurich Film Festivals, together with production and sales groups CAA Media Finance, FilmNation and Wild Bunch, unveiled a new film market, that will run in September and will feature selected titles from the canceled SXSW and Tribeca festivals.
