Dear Friends of Freep Film Festival:

We’re sad to report that we are postponing the 7th annual Freep Film Festival, which was scheduled for April 22-26. While many details remain to be finalized, we plan to move the event to the first week of December.

As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolds – including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s current ban on public gatherings – we need to keep the safety of our attendees, filmmakers, partners and staff as our No. 1 concern. Hosting a festival just isn’t feasible in these circumstances.

Of course, we’re disappointed. But we are determined to move forward by producing a great event at the end of 2020.

As many of you know, we were prepared to unveil our full film lineup on March 12, but delayed that announcement as the imminent seriousness of the Covid-19 situation became apparent. For now, we’re going to keep the lineup under wraps.

In the coming days and weeks, we’re going to have one-on-one conversations with all the filmmakers, distributors and other partners who were set to participate in our April 22-26 event. We hope that many of them will still be part of the festival come December, though some filmmakers may need to follow a different path – a reality we understand and accept.

We’re encouraged that many of our venue partners have already agreed to host screenings and other events in our rescheduled time frame. We’re already busy nailing down the specifics of the schedule.

To our patrons: We sincerely felt like we were ready to roll out our best Freep Film Festival yet. We’re so sorry we won’t be seeing you at the end of April. The Covid-19 development is particularly distressing for those who believe in the power of film presented in a communal setting, and we certainly do.

We’ve prepared a FAQ in anticipation of many your most likely questions, including details about passes, the John Cusack “Grosse Pointe Blank” event and our opening night world premiere of “America You Kill Me.” The FAQ, which you can read here, will be updated as more information becomes available. If you need additional answers, please don’t hesitate to reach out at freepfilmfestival@freepress.com.

We look forward to seeing you in person in December. We also are exploring options for hosting some virtual screenings and conversations aligned with our April 22-26 dates. More on that soon.

In the meantime, please stay safe and focus on what’s most important: the health of you, your family and our community.

Sincerely,

The Freep Film Festival team