Monday morning, the president of the Montreal World Film Festival, Serge Losique, has announced in a brief press release that “the festival will take a break this year to better prepare the 2020 edition”. The statement mentions Losique’s poor health as the reason for this year’s cancellation of the event. This comes to no one’s surprise as the festival had been declining severely in the last few years and it was plagued with financial troubles. Let’s hope that the festival will indeed use that time to recover and that the gap will not mean the death of this once-famed international event. They also said that more details on the 2020 edition will follow shortly.

I am disappointed because I was looking forward to have my yearly dose of Japanese cinema. However, it was to be expected. I should have made arrangements to free myself to attend the Fantasia festival instead…

Press review:

• Le FFM fait relâche en 2019 (La Presse, Le Devoir)
• Il n’y aura pas de Festival des films du monde en 2019 (Radio-Canada)
• Serge Losique’s troubled Festival des films du monde ‘takes a break’ (Montreal Gazette)
• Montreal World Film Festival to take break for 2019, promises return in 2020 (CityNews)
• Montreal World Film Festival won’t be held this year (CTV)
• Montreal World Film Festival abruptly cancelled weeks before opening (CBC)

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