Turkish movies to be showcased at Cannes Film Festival

Short and feature-length Turkish movies will be introduced to international audiences at France's prestigious Cannes Film Festival, one of the world's top annual events in the film industry, which will be held online this year due to the coronavirus outbreak.

According to a statement by Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the festival will kick off with a special collection of 53 movies and an online market section.

Although there will not be a movie competition this year, a total of 8,500 cinema professionals from 60 countries and 250 sales representatives will meet between June 22-26 during the online event.

Members of the international movie industry will have the opportunity to learn about a newly introduced movie assistance program for foreign movie producers in which up to 30% of their costs can be covered by the Turkish state.

In addition, long and short-length Turkish movies and documentaries, some of which are in the development stage, will be showcased in the international arena.

After emerging last December in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the novel coronavirus has spread to at least 188 countries and regions, according to Johns Hopkins University in the US.

There are more than 9 million confirmed infections globally, including over 470,000 deaths and 4.49 million recoveries.