05/11/2025 - Film professionals are urging the European Commission to strengthen cultural-exception rules, retain platform investment obligations and set ethical AI frameworks for creators

The professionals at the Euro Balkan Film Festival

Rome is hosting the eighth Euro Balkan Film Festival (30 October-6 November), which has paired screenings with three high-level industry workshops. The conversations gathered funds, filmmakers, producers and collecting-society leaders from across the Balkans to address authors’ rights in the age of platforms and artificial intelligence (AI), culminating in a final statement that calls for updated EU audiovisual policies and a reaffirmation of the cultural exception.

The participants recalled the centrality of the author in the era of platforms and AI: at a time when streaming platforms dictate the rules and AI threatens to replace the human gaze, the festival asserts the primacy of the author. This is no coincidence: the Balkans have always been a laboratory of cultural resistance, free zones where auteur cinema survives against all market logic. The workshop focused on this question: can auteur, personal, radical cinema still exist? And if so, where?

The final document calls for action at the European level to confirm the right path towards mandatory investments by platforms and broadcasters, as provided for by European directives, and to reaffirm the centrality of the cultural exception and support for independent production.

The full statement is as follows:

As part of the eighth edition of the Euro Balkan Film Festival in Rome, three workshops were held on the themes of storytelling in the age of algorithms and artificial intelligence, and on the creation of copyright collecting societies based on authors’ associations.

The situation of the European audiovisual sector was discussed by the participants, including the board of FERA – Federation of European Film Directors and other representatives, directors, producers and members of film centres from the Balkan regions.

At the conclusion of a wide and well-qualified debate, the following declaration emerged:

The centrality of European policies for the regulation and support of the audiovisual sector is reaffirmed, as they are essential for the creation of a European market and audience, based on the principle of the cultural exception.

Participants in the meeting are united in the belief that the future of European audiovisual creation is underrepresented - if not neglected - in current political agendas and in the EU regulations presently being drafted.

We need to enhance the overall position of audiovisual creation within European society. The mobilising power and social importance of European stories, images and voices are needed now more than ever, in this moment of shattered confidence and a dimmed perspective on European unity.

The European Commission is called upon to update its audiovisual policies, which are increasingly influenced by the following factors:

The presence of distribution — and now also production — platforms that were not created in Europe and that operate with algorithms and editorial guidelines developed outside the European Union.

This leads to a delocalisation of Europe’s storytelling beyond its continental borders, and gravitates towards a homogenisation of creativity, resulting in cultural products that fail to reflect and enhance European culture and diversity.

Therefore, clear and precise rules on the production activities of platforms operating in Europe are needed that reaffirm the importance of the cultural exception as a vital foundation for the further existence of the audiovisual sector in Europe.

It is therefore requested that the definition of a truly European independent producer be established as a prerequisite for access to public support measures.

Operators in the European market must be subject to production investment obligations within the European territory. These investments have so far contributed to the development of a healthy European audiovisual industry and the growth of a European audience that recognises itself in a diversity of narratives — in content, perspectives and languages — rooted in the stories and culture of our continent.

For European authors and creative producers, AI must represent an opportunity for growth, not a substitute for free creation. Ethical and cultural frameworks must be developed for its use as a tool, fully respecting authors’ rights. We appeal to all member states to implement and enforce existing regulations fully and accurately, as this is often not the case.

We urge the European Commission not to proceed with the current draft regulations without profound and structured dialogue with experts representing the productive sector and professional organisations.

It is hoped that the EU Copyright Directive will be adopted as soon as possible by all European countries.

We encourage a broader dissemination of European audiovisual culture, in order to build a more competent, self-conscious and active audience.

There is a need to restore a shared vision of the audiovisual sector as an integral part of the cultural and civic growth process of Europeans.

From Bill Anderson (director; chair of FERA – Federation of European Film Directors), Mario Bova (director of the Euro Balkan Film Festival), Adele Budina (producer), Mimmo Calopresti (director), Lirak Celaj (president of VAPIK – Kosovo’s collective management organisation - CMO), Evien Dako (president of FAAD – Albania’s collective management organisation - CMO), Cécile Despringre (secretary general of the Society of Audiovisual Authors - SAA), Klemen Dvornik (director; member of the Slovenian Directors’ Association), Sergio Giorcelli (legal consultant for 100 Autori and producer), Kiril Gjozev (president of AZAS – North Macedonia’s collective management organisation - CMO), Hrvoje Hribar (director; former director of the Croatian National Film Centre), Andrea Marzulli (head of the Cinema Department at SIAE – Italian Society of Authors and Publishers), Alberto Pasquale (media-economics lecturer; Lazio Innova consultant), Jožko Rutar (producer; former director of the Slovenian National Film Centre), Chiara Sambuchi (director; FERA board member), Maurizio Sciarra (director; curator of the EBFF workshops), Elisabeth Sjaastad (director) and Gregor Štibernik (president of AIPA – Slovenia’s collective management organisation - CMO; SAA board member).