Overview
- At a Saturday audience in the Vatican’s Sala Clementina, the Pope addressed more than a hundred film professionals from Italy and abroad.
- He said theaters face a “worrying erosion” and called on institutions to defend cinemas and affirm the social and cultural value of film exhibition.
- He cautioned that platform algorithms and emerging AI can drive homogenization, urging space for difference, silence, and slowness in artistic creation.
- He described cinema as a communal, spirit-forming art that should confront the world’s wounds without exploiting pain, and he thanked the often unseen technical workforce.
- Cate Blanchett gave a solidarity bracelet and highlighted a Displacement Film Fund for displaced filmmakers, while Spike Lee presented a personalized New York Knicks jersey during an event that ended with extended greetings and a group photo.