In this new situation, we will do our best to cover our distribution activities and our member artists’ events that go online or will be postponed, and send our thoughts to all events rescheduled or cancelled.
Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival CPH:DOX has made an online programme available (and still to be updated) for a local audience, highlighting a selection of this year’s best Danish and international titles. The digital festival is held from March 17–29. In parallel, the festival is working towards having the six competition programmes judged online by the appointed juries as well as reviewed and covered by Danish and international film critics. Pilvi Takala’s If Your Heart Wants It (Remix) (2020, in featured image) is included in the NEW:VISION competition of artists’ films.
The International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) in Montréal has established an online platform based on subscriptions of the Canadian audience during the festival’s original dates, March 17–29. The selection will be updated on daily basis, and it will include Salla Tykkä‘s feature-length documentary film Untitled (White – Alps) (2019) and Petteri Cederberg‘s short animation Median Life and/or Death (2019). Both films were selected for the programme “FIFA Experimental”.

Ann Arbor Film Festival in Michigan will be held as a live stream event between March 24–29. Jussi Eerola’s short film Blue Honda Civic (2020) was selected for the international competition and will be streamed on Thursday, March 26, at 6 pm (UTC-4).
Some festivals that were to be held in later spring are still working out to “reshape” their forthcoming editions but have announced their competition selections already. These include e.g. Visions du Réel in Nyon, Switzerland, and the 66th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, both taking place probably online in May. Maija Blåfield‘s award-winning documentary film The Fantastic (2020) was set to start its international festival cycle from the international competition of Visions du Réel. Mika Taanila‘s new experimental short film, Patentti Nr. 314805 (2020), would have its world festival premiere in the international competition of Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.

There are some festivals that have decided to postpone the event but publish their selection. Elina Oikari‘s short film Govadas (2018) will be screened at Festival International du Film Étnographique du Québec FIFEQ (the festival has not announced new dates yet). Joel Autio’s experimental short film The Other Night was selected for Sunspots: New Visions of Avant-Garde programme at Florida Film Festival, which will be postponed tentatively for August. Autio’s The Other Night is also selected among the 40 finalists for the Talents Contemporains international contemporary art competition of Fondation François Schneider.
Go Short International Film Festival announced a cancellation but then moved the majority of its programme online, available until May 13. The programme includes Marja Helander‘s Birds in the Earth (2018) and Jan Ijäs‘s Waste no. 1 Money (2017). Ijäs’s new short documentary film, Waste no. 4 New York, New York (2019) was selected for the international competition. Regensburg Short Film Week, held in mid-March, was interrupted. Of the works distributed by AV-arkki, Niina Suominen‘s A Finnish Fable 2011 (2011) was screened on the second day of the festival, but the screenings of Maarit Suomi-Väänänen‘s Log Head (2015) and Anssi Kasitonni‘s Saladdin Castique (2018) were cancelled with the other remaining programme.