The Lumière Declaration on the Future of Cinema and the Moving Image is a global framework of 15 principles adopted on September 7, 2026, at the Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France.
Core Overview
Initiative and Leadership: Jointly presented by France and South Korea, the summit was co-chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.
Global Governance: Designed to establish a new "multilateralism of the moving image," providing a baseline of global governance 130 years after the Lumière brothers' first public screening.
Key Participants: Signed by international organizations, governments, and industry leaders—including the Motion Picture Association (MPA)—with support from a council of prominent filmmakers like Wim Wenders, Denis Villeneuve, and Juliette Binoche.
Core Principles
Works at the Center: Reaffirms that moving images are a shared cultural common good and that ambitious, intentional works remain irreplaceable.
Audience Attention:
States that audience attention is "a trust to be honoured, not a resource to be captured" in an era of digital and algorithmic saturation.
Creation and Renewal:
Creation and Renewal:
Stresses investment in next-generation talent, experimentation, and public-private financial support.
Diversity and Growth:
Defends cultural diversity across formats, languages, and budgets while recognizing the audiovisual sector as a core driver of economic growth.
The Saint-Paul-de-Vence Declaration on Artificial Intelligence is one of five thematic frameworks adopted on September 7, 2026, during the Lumière Summit at the Fondation Maeght in France. Rather than debating if artificial intelligence should be integrated into film, TV, and gaming, the declaration sets out to establish on what terms AI is used and who gets to decide.
The Six Core Principles
The framework outlines six principles intended to guide future legislation, cross-border industry conduct, and copyright enforcement:
Cultural Diversity & UNESCO Protection:
The first principle firmly places AI systems—whether they produce, disseminate, transform, or are trained on cultural works—within the regulatory scope of the 2005 UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity.
Human Foundation & Fair Remuneration: It affirms that human-created works are the fundamental bedrock of generative systems. Crucially, any use of copyrighted material to train AI models must respect intellectual property laws and guarantee fair payment to rights holders.
Reclaiming Creative Control: Reaffirming statements made by French President Emmanuel Macron at the summit, the declaration states that AI should be a tool that strengthens human creativity and innovation, ensuring human creation always remains the irreplaceable heart of any work.
Mitigating "Agentic AI" Disruption: The text flags an unprecedented multilateral warning regarding the rise of autonomous, agentic AI, expressing deep concern over a future where audience access to artistic works is entirely filtered or mediated by automated agents.
Signatories & Enforcement Nuance
While the broader Lumière Declaration saw a massive wave of industry backing, the targeted, legally sensitive AI text carried a much narrower, highly specific list of initial signees:
Sovereign States: Signed by France and the Republic of Korea.
Rights Organizations: Signed by SACEM (which manages rights for music authors, composers, and publishers) and Adami (which collects and distributes revenue for performers like actors and musicians).
The "Studio" Gap: Observers noted that while these four institutions wield immense regulatory and licensing power in Europe, no major AI developers, streaming platforms, or Hollywood studios were part of the initial signatures. However, the declaration remains open for future signatories as international frameworks evolve.
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Human Foundation & Fair Remuneration: It affirms that human-created works are the fundamental bedrock of generative systems. Crucially, any use of copyrighted material to train AI models must respect intellectual property laws and guarantee fair payment to rights holders.
Reclaiming Creative Control: Reaffirming statements made by French President Emmanuel Macron at the summit, the declaration states that AI should be a tool that strengthens human creativity and innovation, ensuring human creation always remains the irreplaceable heart of any work.
Mitigating "Agentic AI" Disruption: The text flags an unprecedented multilateral warning regarding the rise of autonomous, agentic AI, expressing deep concern over a future where audience access to artistic works is entirely filtered or mediated by automated agents.
Signatories & Enforcement Nuance
While the broader Lumière Declaration saw a massive wave of industry backing, the targeted, legally sensitive AI text carried a much narrower, highly specific list of initial signees:
Sovereign States: Signed by France and the Republic of Korea.
Rights Organizations: Signed by SACEM (which manages rights for music authors, composers, and publishers) and Adami (which collects and distributes revenue for performers like actors and musicians).
The "Studio" Gap: Observers noted that while these four institutions wield immense regulatory and licensing power in Europe, no major AI developers, streaming platforms, or Hollywood studios were part of the initial signatures. However, the declaration remains open for future signatories as international frameworks evolve.
Read more on
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