According to THR Italia, Venice Film Festival boss Alberto Barbera is currently working on a Plan B if American films do not participate in the 80th edition due to the actors strike.
Barbera told his closest collaborators, “it will be a pan-European festival [..] Let's try to understand what American producers want to do, but, in the meantime, we need to build an alternative program.”
That alternative program would consist, mostly, of European and Asian cinema via filmmakers such as Miyazaki, Bonello, Larraín, Polanski, Garrone, Besson, Dupieux, and Kahn.
Meanwhile, this same report has sources saying that the organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival are already “basically certain” that there will not be many US films in the lineup. The dirty little secret is that it’ll practically be impossible for a deal to be reached between studios and actors before September.