Spitting Image: Cannes Grossed Out By Festival Spit Tests

Cannes, France, July 7 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Jul, 2021 ) :Cannes -- the glamour, the pop of champagne corks, the endless parties ... and now the dawn chorus of Hollywood stars hocking up to spit into plastic funnels.

The new ritual is the latest addition to the layers of ceremonial that surround the world's biggest film festival.

Every day thousands of festival goers from the highest paid actors to the humblest film blogger have to undergo Cannes' "gross" Covid spit tests.

Everyone from outside the EU is subject to the indignity if they want to set foot in the Palais des Festivals, where all the red carpet premieres are held.

Americans have found the experience particularly humiliating, with the movie industry bible Variety branding the tests "disgusting".

"You need to spit in a plastic tube over and over again even if you've been vaccinated," wrote its executive editor Ramin Setoodeh.

"And it's gross and surprisingly difficult." Setoodeh was "ushered into a large room and handed a plastic container, along with a funnel.

.. and instructed to aim your spit behind a socially-distanced partition. Some missed, hitting the floor or their clothes." Many, like The Guardian's film critic Peter Bradshaw, could not summon up enough spittle after trudging through crowds on the baking sea-front road, the Croisette.

"'That's not enough spit, Monsieur,' the test lady told me sternly," said Bradshaw.

"Spitting into a plastic cup doesn't exactly say the glamour of the Cannes film festival," he told AFP.

"It is not likely to go into the showreel with Jeanne Moreau and Fellini, but needs must," he added, after the festival was cancelled last year because of the pandemic.

"No one is exempt. Everybody has to submit to the rules," Cannes director Thierry Fremaux insisted, even the biggest Names.

As of Tuesday night, none of the thousands of movers and shakers who have descended on the Croisette had tested positive, biologist Dr Guillaume Armana told AFP.

"But we have to be careful. The place is hopping and we know that the Delta variant is there," he warned.