Cannes-bound directors Pawel Pawlikowski (“Fatherland”), Lukas Dhont (“Coward”) and Rodrigo Sorogoyen (“The Beloved”) are among the more than 4,700 film personalities who have signed an open letter calling for the European Union to backpedal on its plans to make major changes to its Creative Europe funding program by combining its culture and media strands under the so-called AgoraEU initiative.
What they claim is at stake is the future of Creative Europe’s MEDIA Program that has been a crucial EU film and TV industry driver for the past 35 years, having backed recent Oscar winners such as “Sentimental Value,” “Mr Nobody against Putin,” “Flow,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Favourite.”
The timing of their appeal is particularly significant since European Commissioner Henna Virkkunen is expected to attend the Cannes Film Festival on May 15 and 16, just as EU Member States are preparing their first official position on the proposal.
The bone of contention is that under the planned overhaul, the budget of the MEDIA program — which supports EU film-TV-videogame development, distribution, training and promotion — would most likely shrink from its current €2.44 billion ($2.8 billion) for 2021-2027 to a total €3.2 billion ($3.7 billion). That sum in 2028-2034 would be allocated to the new MEDIA+ program covering film, TV and video games on the one hand, but also going to the news media sector.
“While the overall budget may increase, there is currently no guarantee of dedicated funding for the film and audiovisual sector, raising major concerns across the industry about the future of independent production, theatrical distribution, training and cultural diversity in Europe,” they said in a statement.
“It is now the time to write the next chapter of the European Cinema story, with even greater
ambition, commensurate with the challenges we face,” the letter stated. “We must not fail to see that the destiny of democracy and that of cinema, both born in Europe, are intimately linked.”
Other signatories of the open letter include Juliette Binoche, Costa-Gavras, Joachim Trier, Ruben Östlund, Stellan Skarsgård, Sandra Hüller, Vicky Krieps, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Rebecca Zlotowski, Yorgos Lanthimos, Oliver Laxe, İlker Çatak, Francis Ford Coppola, and Michel Hazanavicius.
English (US) ·