As the SAG-AFTRA strikes continue to shut down major United States productions, worldwide film festivals and award shows continue to feel the absence of American films and actors.

“I had closed the lineup, so you can imagine with what spirit I faced the following week,” said Alberto Barbera, the director of the Venice Film Festival, when he realized that he would have to reschedule many of the festival’s time slots to replace the American movies that had been pulled from rotation. “I was ready to throw it all up in the air and rethink everything!”

Many American films, such as Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, starring Zendaya, were pulled from the lineup by their distributors. Many actors whose films were given the go-ahead by SAG-AFTRA’s interim agreements due to being made by independent studios will not be attending; Emma Stone, who stars in Poor Things, and Bradley Cooper, director and star of Maestro, will not be in attendance despite the films being shown.

While Barbera said that he understood the reasons for the strikes, he commented on how dangerous the fallout could be for the film industry: “If we go through more months of sporadic and more rarefied releases, with just a few magnet movies like Barbie and Oppenheimer getting onto screens, this will exacerbate the evanescence of the moviegoing habit and widen the disconnect between audiences and auteur cinema.”