Dear Festival Participants,

 

It has been disheartening to see the information that is now being shared regarding the state of COVID restrictions projected for the summer by President Biden and other government officials and agencies in recent days here in the USA, including the delayed rollout of vaccinations in the USA, new strains of the disease worldwide and current restrictions banning all indoor entertainment events in the state of New York-- something we highly anticipated would be phasing out when we began organizing our festival in November 2020.

 

Given this new information and realities, we are forced to cancel the in-person festival.  We do so now as we know many of our filmmakers would need to go through the process of obtaining a travel visa and start making travel arrangements soon.  While we sincerely wish that we could hold this event in-person, we will not risk the health of any of you or our other participants of the festival to do so.

 

That said, the show must go on...we will be moving the festival to an online voting contest.  The online festival will be held in August 2021. This event will allow BeBop and filmmakers to reach out to their fans and give everyone a dynamic way to celebrate all of our films who participated in the festivals.  We have provided some initial key points about online voting below.  Additional, detailed information will be forthcoming.

 

Key Points About the Online Voting

 

1) There will be multiple winners in multiple categories.

 

2) Because we have no method of screening the films except through The BeBop Channel platform, films previously not part of the online platform would need to be uploaded to participate in the voting.

 

3) We hope to offer opportunities for those who wished to perform at the in-person festival to still perform virtually.

 

4) There will be incentives and prizes that we will announce later as we get closer to the opening of the event

 

Again, we are disheartened by this turn of events and want to thank all of our filmmakers.  We look forward to holding in-person festivals and events in the future once we, as a global community, turn the corner on the COVID-19 pandemic.  Until then, we will continue to build our community online and celebrate your incredible artistry virtually and  we hope that all of you remain safe and healthy!

 

Best,

Sue Veres Royal

COO

The BeBop Channel Corporation