YouTube is partnering with Tribeca, Cannes, Sundance and several others to offer a free film festival on its platform from May 29 to June 7.
We Are One: A Global Film Festival, produced and organized by Tribeca Enterprises, will include feature films, shorts, documentaries, and panel discussions from the programming of 20 festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Venice, Berlin, Toronto, Mumbai, Tokyo, and of course, Tribeca.
The festival will stream for free to the public and will not include advertisements. Viewers will, however, be prompted to contribute to coronavirus relief efforts, with donations to be collected by the United Nations Foundation.
The We Are One team hasn’t released which specific films which will be shown nor how robust the schedule will be as yet.
Jane Rosenthal, head of Tribeca Enterprises and Tribeca Film Festival, said in a statement the streaming event will give people “a taste of what makes each festival so unique and appreciates the art and power of film.”
Lockdowns over the coronavirus have either shut down, postponed, or forced many film festivals to go digital already.
The Venice Biennale announced it would still be moving forward with its September dates for an in-person festival. Cannes has been postponed twice and has discussed the idea of going digital. Tribeca also still is trying to plan for a possible combination of online and in-person events for its September festival.
One notable exception is the South by Southwest festival which was set to take place in Austin, Texas, this past March. The in-person event was canceled due to concerns over coronavirus and organizers came to an agreement with Amazon Prime to stream more than 35 films, shorts, and documentaries starting this week.
Digital Trends reached out to YouTube for comment on the festival. We will update this story when we hear back.
