Representatives of countries, international organizations, film, television and gaming industry leaders, creators, festivals and cultural institutions from across the world adopted the Lumière Declaration on the Future of Cinema and the Moving Image on Monday at the Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.
Jointly presented by France and the Republic of Korea and convened under the co-chairship of their respective presidents, the declaration sets out 15 principles and remains open for further signatures. “We lay here the foundations of a multilateralism of the moving image,” it states – a framework adopted 200 years after the first photograph and 130 years after the Lumière brothers’ first public screening of the Cinématographe, and one the declaration describes as the beginning of something new: “the moving image now has the beginnings of a global governance – a multilateralism meant to grow, through new initiatives, new partners and future gatherings.”
What the declaration argues, at its core, is that moving images exist for more than the capture of attention. They are, it states, “a common good: a vehicle for emotion, memory and knowledge, for individual emancipation and collective transformation.” Ambitious, intentional works “remain irreplaceable,” and “the future of our industries will be defined by the works we choose to create and support.”
The sharpest line in the document draws a direct contrast with algorithmic platforms: “The attention of an audience is not a resource to be captured, but a trust to be honored.” That conviction runs through several further principles — on who makes stories (“the richness of the stories we tell depends on the diversity of those who create them”), on the conditions under which they are made (“freedom of creation is a condition of the vitality and diversity of the moving image”), and on those who face “political, economic or social pressures that threaten their ability to create and to be heard,” for whom the declaration backs international networks of solidarity. An industry that excludes women or operates in unsafe conditions, it states, must become “exemplary in the exercise” of its power to shape representations.
On economics, the declaration is equally explicit. “A powerful engine of economic growth” is how it describes the audiovisual industry – one that “drives investment across a broad range of businesses, creates jobs, cultivates a highly skilled workforce, fosters innovation.” Distributors and others who profit from exploiting works carry “both a responsibility and a direct interest in the next generation of creation,” it states, calling for public support to enable early-stage risk-taking and for conditions that allow creators to develop their work over time. “International co-production diversifies risk, enriches works and binds our ecosystems together,” it adds, with a commitment to deepen cooperation between established and emerging markets “so that the diversity of the world’s stories finds its way onto the world’s screens.” The commercial case for breadth of output is put plainly: “The diversity of works, across budgets, languages, genres, formats and geographies, is not a constraint on competitiveness; it is its foundation.”
Three of the 15 principles address technology. “Artificial intelligence can strengthen creativity, innovation and the circulation of works – provided it becomes a driver of creation,” the declaration states, adding that “human creation should always remain at the heart and foundation of works.” On discoverability, it flags a risk no multilateral document has previously named – the rise of agentic AI – warning of “the possible advent of a world in which access to works would increasingly be mediated by automated agents.” On piracy: “When creation is not rewarded, it cannot be renewed.”
The remaining principles address the physical and cultural infrastructure the industry depends on. “Diversity needs cinemas in order to thrive; cinemas need diversity in order to fulfill their cultural, economic and social role,” the declaration states on theatrical exhibition. On heritage, it warns of “the critical period for the conservation of physical archives, whose elements degrade inexorably over time,” calling for investment and solidarity so that “every country can pass its memory on, alive and visible, to future generations.” On education: “Just as previous centuries pursued universal literacy in the written word, the age of images demands an equally ambitious commitment to image literacy,” with cinema identified as “one of the last places where individual screens are switched off and where we learn, again, to watch together.” A final principle commits signatories to developing “best practices, flexible standards, and practical tools for the design and implementation of sustainable production, distribution and exhibition.”
The signatories committed to remain collectively engaged and to review progress together.
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