Juliette Binoche, Francis Ford Coppola Joachim Trier, Ruben Östlund, Stellan Skarsgård, Sandra Hüller and Vicky Krieps joined calls for the European Union to “future-proof” the 35-year-old MEDIA bloc program that has supported thousands of films over the years.
They are among more than 4,700 cinema professionals who signed an open letter entitled “Europe needs cinema, Cinema needs Europe”.
It has been published as EU Member States discuss plans for a controversial new banned AgoraEU program that will bring spending on culture, media and society under one umbrella. The move has sent alarm bells ringing across Europe’s independent film industry.
Under the proposal, the MEDIA program will be merged into a new Media+ strand that combines support for the film and audio industries with that of video games, news media and journalism. MEDIA previously sat under the umbrella of Creative Europe and used several well-defined funding mechanisms, respected for more than three decades, with clear multi-year funding windows.
The European Commission proposed to set aside €8.6 billion ($1 billion) under its 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), with the European Parliament proposing in April that this should be increased to €10.7 billion under its ongoing consultation.
European film experts say that although these statistics suggest that more money can be found for culture and media as a whole, there are no guarantees about what will be spent in the audiovisual and film sectors or any defined goals. The book is part of a growing campaign to raise awareness of what is at stake.
“Just as the idea of Europe itself is a unique project, the idea of the MEDIA program is to support the diverse voices of Europe in one house,” it reads.
“For more than 35 years, it has supported the creation of European stories from script development to production by independent production companies, theatrical and online releases, festivals, professional training and skills development.”
“We, European cinema professionals and citizens – all cinema lovers – invite the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Member States to prove in the future the success and integrity of the important and valuable MEDIA system and strengthen its resources. There are no shared values, no democracy, and no European soft power, without the creation of art.”
Member states must adopt the first position on the AgoraEU proposal on May 12, the same day as the opening of the 79th Cannes Film Festival.
The book’s signatories include a number of Cannes habitués including 2026 Palme d’Or contender Rodrigo Sorogoyen (BelovedLukas Dhont (A coward), Pawel Pawlikowski (Fatherland) and Arthur Harari (The unknown) and Ruben Östlund, Yorgos Lanthimos, Oliver Laxe, Michel Hazanavicius, Agnieszka Holland, Nadav Lapid, Laura Wandel, Ariane Labed, Agnès Jaoui, Clémence Poésy, Arnaud Desplechin among many others.
Most of the signatories are from Europe but the letter has also gained momentum beyond the borders of the region with Coppola among those who support him.
The festival is often a time to celebrate the MEDIA program due to its support of many European films in the Official Selection and related categories. This year, however, its future will be one of the hot button topics for European professionals up and down the Croisette.
Read the full letter below:
Cinema needs Europe, Europe needs cinema
“There is no art form, like cinema, that goes beyond our everyday consciousness to touch our emotions, deep in the dark room of our soul.”
For more than 130 years, this evening room, as Ingmar Bergman called it, was enlivened by the lives of others, by their thoughts, their struggles, their words and their views.
Cinema begins with the desire to create. It becomes a film through a series of interactions: screenwriters, directors and producers develop it, cinematographers, actors, and technical staff contribute, film funds support it, sales agents and distributors bring it to cinemas and festivals – and later broadcasters and broadcasters, critics debate, and audiences accept it.
Filmmaking is a collective art. It becomes an industry through job creation and technological innovation. Yet the entire film remains a prototype, impossible to mass produce on an assembly line. There are no economies of scale in storytelling. This dual nature requires deliberate political choices involving public and private operators.
Europe itself, as a collective effort, was imagined in the stories before it was created, it is a continent of Stefan Zweig’s ideas, not armies. Cinema brings this imagined Europe to life: La Dolce Vita, Wings of Desire or Amélie have turned Rome, Berlin and Paris into shared cultural references. Anatomy of a Fall, Sirat, or The New Years, a worldwide success from European talent, continues to build bridges across languages and borders.
In Europe, the political choice of cinema, be it Czech, Italian, Swedish, Slovenian, Portuguese or Belgian, is the MEDIA system. Just as the idea of Europe itself is a unique project, the idea of the MEDIA program is to support the diverse voices of Europe in one house.
For more than 35 years, it has been supporting the creation of European stories from script development to production by independent production companies, theatrical and online releases, festivals, professional training and skills development. It gave way to all kinds of European projects, including the most unexpected ones, from East to West and from North to South. Building on the regulations of the Union and the Member States, it also strengthened our industries against international giants, allowed film professionals to face industry turmoil and resist standardization, and encouraged a dynamic and job-creating ecosystem.
MEDIA is a drop in the sea of European funds: it represents 0.2% of the Union’s budget, while, as a comparison, the common agricultural policy alone makes up 32% of this budget.
However, it has been a European success story with an unparalleled impact.
Thanks to MEDIA, the works that promoted the growth of Ruben Östlund or Justine Triet went all over the world.
Thanks to MEDIA, Europe wins the Oscar almost every year: after Flow, the animated film by Gints Zilbalodis, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value and the documentary “Nobody against Putin” by David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin took first place in 2026.
Thanks to MEDIA, the voices of exiled and oppressed writers, such as Jafar Panahi or Mohammad Rasoulof, have the freedom to reach an audience around the world.
Thanks to MEDIA, the cinemas of our beloved neighbors can always be open to the world with a variety of programming, and they don’t have to close their doors.
Without MEDIA, we would all be less European.
Greek filmmaker Costa-Gavras once said, “you can’t change people’s political opinion with a film, but you can, at least, spark a political conversation”. In times marked by war, political strife, and pressure on democracy – our highest good – this work is essential. We strive to give our communities, our children and the adults of tomorrow a taste of collective experience, compassion, and resistance.
Yet Europe’s ability to tell its own stories is under strain. Most of the audio products viewed in Europe come from outside the continent. Global platforms are increasingly shaping visibility, reach and news. At the same time, the sector is facing structural changes: changing audience habits, including declining cinema attendance, the rise of artificial intelligence, and growing geopolitical competition.
The European Union is currently revising the rules that enable European cinema to flourish, travel, and carry our common voice. It includes the future of MEDIA in the new AGORA EU program.
Now is the time to write the next chapter of the story of European Cinema, with even greater ambition, in line with the challenges we face. We must not fail to see that the fate of democracy and cinema, both born in Europe, are closely linked. Because every time a cinema is opened, the life of democracy asserts itself.
We, European cinema professionals and citizens – all cinema lovers – invite the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Member States to prove in the future the success and integrity of the important and valuable MEDIA program and strengthen its resources. There are no shared values, no democracy, and no European soft power, without the creation of art.
