Berlin Jan. 16 (BUS) – The Berlin Film Festival will take place in person next month but will only use half the available seating capacity and attendees will be required to adhere to strict COVID-19 protocols, organizers said on Wednesday.
With the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in Germany, the organizers of the Berlinale Festival, as it is widely known, have made determined efforts to make the festival take place in a safe environment after it went online last year, Reuters reported.
The organizers said in a statement that the Berlinale Festival begins on February 10, and culminates in an awards ceremony on February 16, in which gold and silver bears will be distributed, meaning that the festival will be a little shorter than planned. It usually works for about 10 days.
For four days after that, festival films will be shown in cinemas across the capital in public screenings.
To allow for social distancing, seating capacity in festival cinemas will be reduced by 50% and no public parties or events will take place, although there will be a mini version of the red carpet in premiere theaters, organizers said.
The public must be vaccinated or have recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection, have recently tested negative as well as wear a mask.
“We want the festival to send a signal to the entire film industry, to cinemas and their patrons, and to culture as a whole. We need cinema, we need culture,” German Minister of Culture and Information Claudia Roth said.
Germany reported 80,430 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, the highest number recorded in a single day since the beginning of the epidemic, and more than 114,000 people have died from the COVID-19 virus.
Last week, the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases said Omicron was responsible for 44 percent of coronavirus infections in Germany, as rules for visits to restaurants and bars have been tightened.
MI