The film and entertainment industry continues to find a way to push through despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, staging award shows and film festivals with new health and safety measures so that films can conduct their premiere. The Venice Film Festival is the latest film festival to do so, with the film Nomadland set to make its debut there.

Deadline reports that the festival has announced that the Chloe Zao-helmed Nomadland will premiere at the Lido on Sept. 11. The film stars Academy Award winner Frances McDormand, who also served as producer. Zhao is also a writer, producer, and editor for the film aside from director.

Nomadland tells the story of Fern, a woman who decides to become a modern nomad living on the roads of America after the collapse of a company town in Nebraska. Starring alongside McDormand in the film are real nomads Bob Wells, Swankie, and Linda May, who act as Fern’s comrades and mentors.

Zhao says she was drawn to make the film because of her fascination with the American road, calling it “heartbreakingly beautiful and deeply complicated.” Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera described Nomadland as a “brave and touching journey.”

Vanity Fair also reports that Nomadland will also screen simultaneously at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Telluride Film Festival and the New York Film Festival will also have Nomadland screenings in their festival.

New York Film Festival director Eugene Hernandez praised Nomadland as deserving of its central spot in the New York Film Festival as well as the attention it has received from the Venice Film Festival, Telluride, and the Toronto Film Festival.

Audiences who will be catching Nomadland in the Venice Film Festival will be participating in a festival that has put in extensive changes to make sure that the event does not become a coronavirus infection hotspot.

Some of the changes that were brought about by the pandemic include the scrapping of the Sconfini section that features cross-media productions, television series, experimental works, genre films, and arthouse films. The Venice Classics section has also been moved to the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival held in August.

Foreign press will be helped out by digital technology when it comes to covering the festival. Films will still be screened in the Lido but with social distancing measures in place. Organizers have also set up two outdoor arenas to serve as screening venues.

The Venice Film Festival will be pushing through in a world that is still very much in the grip of the global coronavirus pandemic. The World Health Organization’s situation report for July 27 pegs the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide at 16,114,449 people. There are now 646,641 deaths caused by COVID-19 globally.