Film critic Scott Menzel went to Twitter this evening to announce that his wife, who attended the Telluride Film Festival with him, tested positive for COVID-19. This came just a few minutes after Deadline’s Pete Hammond wrote a piece titled “A Vaxxed And Tested Telluride Film Festival Is A Triumph In The Age Of Covid.”

Menzel tweeted:

“I normally don’t like to share personal news like this on Twitter, but for friends and colleagues who were at #TellurideFilmFestival, please go get tested immediately. My wife tested positive for Covid today and she is fully vaccinated and tested negative before we arrived.”

Telluride is known to be a very close-knit festival with lots of mingling between journalists, actors, directors, attendees etc. A positive case is not all that surprising, but it does make one wonder if a domino effect will happen and more people will test positive as well in the days to come.

The festival did make it mandatory to wear a mask during the movies and to show proof of vaccination, plus a negative Covid test result within 72 hours of arriving at the festival. The screenings were all busy and in many instances completely full (with the largest venues holding over 600 people).

In his Deadline piece, Hammond said he “saw no slowdown at all in terms of Telluride dinners, parties, receptions and gatherings put on by the studios and distributors touting their films playing here. If anything, there were more of them than ever, some outdoors, some indoors, and some a combination of the two. Unlike the movie mask wearing rule, once inside these events, which included lots of eating and drinking, most attendees ditched the masks.”

At the capacity-filled “The Power of the Dog” screening, star Benedict Cumberbatch joked before the film, “It is so nice to be here in Telluride at this super-spreader event.” Let’s hope that stays a joke.