Opening Keynote
12:45 - 13:05 Monday 24th Mar 2025 / 20 min
A fiercely independent filmmaker will evoke the potential power and importance of independent media. With Claire Simon.
Documentaries play an important role in the audiovisual landscape by offering audiences not just the facts of a story but an emotional connection to a vital human experience. They carry the promise to dig deeper and bring us closer to the truth. And it is precisely their independence, transparency and integrity that put them in a position to promote democratic discussion and debate. Policy makers can help by guaranteeing a free and diverse audiovisual landscape, where audiences continue to have trusted access to a variety of voices, experiences and stories, and filmmakers find a variety of reliable partners – both public and private – to support production and distribution.
Claire Simon is a director, screenwriter, and producer renowned for her work in both documentary and fiction filmmaking.