European filmmakers' manifesto to EU Institutions

We, European filmmakers, create in a particular place. Our films reflect our European cultures in all their diversity and specificity. Our images, our languages, and our narratives are our wealth. Our past and present history is the fertile ground of our works. Today, we call for a “Europe of Culture”!

Because this culture is in danger. Cinema and the audiovisual sector are in danger.

Cinema is an art. In this, it carries a responsibility: to offer at once a point of view, a thought, and a spectacle. In Europe, since its invention by the Lumière Brothers, cinema has carried a cultural mission, an integral part of our rich heritage. To support this cultural actor, we have built an industry. It is now strong and dynamic. It is in this sense that we consider cinema both as an art and as an industry.

European cinema has developed and flourished over the decades. Faced with Hollywood’s economic hegemony, European filmmakers have, with much less money, offered an incredible diversity of viewpoints and a vibrant freedom of expression.

Today, in the context of an economic war with the United States – Donald Trump having personally wished for the weakening of European legislation to strengthen American digital players – the European Commission tends to neglect the cultural dimension of cinema, thereby risking reducing policy for this sector to mere market regulation, disregarding its cultural and artistic specificity.

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This manifesto was signed by more than 850 european filmmakers among which: Claude Lelouch, Julie Bertuccelli, Radu Mihaileanu, Agnieszka Holland, Cédric Klapisch, Francesca Comencini, Dominik Moll, Caroline Vignal, Patricia Mazuy, Jean-Pierre et Luc Dardenne, Isabel Coixet, Miguel Gomes, Lucas Belvaux et Cristian Mungiu...