In a just-posted Indiewire piece about the upcoming 2020 and ’21 Oscar season, Anne Thompson quotes a prominent awards strategist as follows: “To cancel Oscars is to kill cinema…it’s the death knell.”

I for one agree, but when I think of “Oscars” I mostly think of the six-month-long, September-to-February season in which films of a somewhat higher calibre get a lot of attention. One way or another “the season” has to happen, and it has to kick off in September or at least October, come hell or high water.

Thompson also speculates that a New York and Los Angeles-based Telluride Film Festival is more likely than the usual usual. “Virtual participation is far more likely — and if fewer talent attends, and media follows, how eager will studios be to program their films? Most likely, distributors will wind up screening movies curated by the tastemakers at Telluride for media in L.A. and N.Y. under safer conditions in rooms sparsely filled by media and awards voters. ‘Telluride films will be ones you pay attention to,’ said one awards campaigner.”