THE Beijing International Film Festival has been postponed amid a resurgence in COVID-19 cases caused by the spread of the Delta variant.

The festival is typically held in April, but organizers pushed back the event this year in hopes that by late summer the pandemic would have subsided to an extent that international filmmakers and guests would be able to travel to China to participate. Instead, the pandemic gathered momentum and forced a further postponement, making Beijing the first major film festival to postpone amid rising Delta concerns.

“Due to the recent outbreaks of the epidemic in many areas of the country, the 11th Beijing International Film Festival, originally scheduled for Aug. 14-21, will be postponed for general safety and health reasons,” the festival’s organizers said in a brief statement shared on Chinese social media.

The festival’s lineup already had been announced last month, and Chinese actress Gong Li had been appointed as the president of the event’s main competition jury.

Rising concern over the Delta variant’s spread in China prompted officials to scrap all large-scale exhibitions and events in Beijing for the remainder of August. Other major events affected include: the third annual World 5G Conference, a major telecom industry convention; the World Robot Conference; and the sixth edition of the Jackie Chan International Action Film Week, which was slated to kick off in the northern city of Datong last week.

China has been hit by a continuing cascade of Delta variant outbreaks since July, comprising the worst spread of COVID-19 since the country effectively eliminated the virus from within its borders over a year ago. The country reported 124 new confirmed COVID-19 cases Thursday, up from 85 just a day earlier. The ongoing outbreak began in Nanjing, and has since spread to 15 provinces and municipalities, including Beijing, where a handful of locally transmitted cases have recently been discovered.

The outbreak already is beginning to affect China’s theatrical box office, which has emerged from the pandemic as the world’s biggest national film market, as North America still contends with pandemic-era aversion to cinemas.

Bona Film Group’s Korean War epic “The Battle at Lake Changjin,” arguably the biggest Chinese tentpole of the summer, has been postponed from its Aug. 12 release date. With a production budget of over US$200 million, the film is thought to be China’s most expensive movie ever made. The film is co-directed by three titans of the film industry — Chen Kaige, Hark Tsui and Dante Lam — and it stars China’s most bankable leading man, Wu Jing, star of “Wolf Warrior 2” (2017), which remains the biggest Chinese film in box office history at US$867 million in total ticket sales. Rising star Jackson Yee, the breakout lead of the Oscar nominated “Better Days“ (US$230 million), co-stars.

(SD-Agencies)