The Secretary General Alain Berset will attend the 78th Cannes Film Festival on 17 and 18 May 2025 to reaffirm the key role of culture in revitalising democracy and support European film making. “Culture, like democracy, is essential – not a luxury,” Berset said ahead of the festival. “Culture gives everyone – regardless of identity, origins, or belief – a voice in our shared story.”
Alain Berset will meet leading figures from the audiovisual world including representatives of the European Producers Club, the European Co-ordination of Independent Producers (CEPI) and ARTE, as well as several European Ministers of Culture and other stakeholders.
He will also speak at the event to be held by the Eurimages cultural fund for European cinema, which is supporting a selection of 15 cinematographic co-productions at this year’s festival.
These films arising from international co-operation between producers from the Eurimages member states will be shown in several of the festival’s prestigious sections, including the Official Competition, Un Certain Regard, Critics’ Week and Cannes Premieres.
Through this high-level visit, the Council of Europe wishes to draw attention to the following points:
- audiovisual works – in the form of series, films and other formats – are major cultural creations, which are key to understanding our societies and promoting shared democratic values;
- the audiovisual sector is not just a cultural asset but also one of Europe’s major economic driving forces;
- the Council of Europe’s intergovernmental role in devising coherent cultural policies between member states, particularly in the audiovisual sphere, complements the work of the European Union to promote a European cultural space based on human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
Background
The Council of Europe is a long-standing and committed partner to the audiovisual sector, acting in particular through:
- Eurimages, a support fund for European cinematographic co-productions, which has supported over 2 500 international co-productions since 1989;
- the European Audiovisual Observatory, which provides economic and legal data and studies on the film, television and VOD sectors in Europe;
- structural conventions, such as the European Convention on Transfrontier Television, the European Convention for the Protection of the Audiovisual Heritage and the European Convention on Cinematographic Co-production.
Culture will be at the heart of the New Democratic Pact for Europe, to which the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the 46 Council of Europe member States gave their political support in Luxembourg this week (14 May).
