Creative Europe Forum 2025

Relais Culture Europe organized a new edition of the Creative Europe Forum 2025 in Paris. This event brought together European cultural actors around a key issue: freedom, commitment, and the construction of shared narratives within European culture. 

In a context where fundamental freedoms are becoming increasingly fragile and democratic values are being questioned, culture remains a space for reflection, experimentation, and dialogue. Art, audiovisual media, and the media continue to give voice to those who question our societies, stimulate civic engagement, and open new perspectives. 

This forum brought together artists, cultural professionals, audiovisual and media actors, researchers, and public decision-makers. Together, explored a central question: how, in today's Europe, can culture defend freedoms, nurture engagement, and contribute to a vibrant, open, and shared democracy?

Audio recordings are hosted at archive.org and playable below:

Roundtable One – Being Free: Safeguarding Artistic and Cultural Freedoms in Europe

Keynote – Nora Philippe (program director, Eurodoc)
Moderator: Julie Trébault (executive director, Artists at Risk Connection – ARC)
Speakers:

• Laurent Bigarella (network coordinator, RESET!, and director of the ideas and cooperation hub at Arty Farty)
• Thibaut Bruttin (general director, Reporters Without Borders)
• Catherine Magnant (head of the cultural policy unit at DG EAC, European Commission)
• Paul Rechter (advisor to the general director of artistic creation, Ministry of Culture)
• Sophie Valais (deputy head of the legal affairs department, European Audiovisual Observatory)

Roundtable Two – Engaging: Reinventing Forms of Cultural and Democratic Action

Keynote – Zvonimir Dobrović (founder and artistic director of Domino, artistic director of Queer Zagreb and the Perforations Festival)
Moderator: Milica Ilić (coordinator and independent consultant for international cultural projects)
Speakers:

• Françoise Billot (vice-president, Banlieues Capitales)
• Giulia Cibrario (junior analyst and policy advisor, OCDE)
• Emi Gutierrez (visual artist)
• Anne Hertzog (conference chair at Cergy Paris University, director of the PLACES Lab)
• Vincent Kulesza (project coordinator, Commune de nuit)
• Sebastien Naumann (general delegate, CICAE)

Roundtable Three – Telling: Giving Voice to a Democracy in Search of Itself

Keynote – Mariam Otarashvili (head of communication and artistic affairs, Mutant Radio)
Moderator: Isabel Andreen (coordinator and independent consultant for international cultural projects)
Speakers:

• Christine Buhagiar (director of development and diversification, AFP)
• Priscilla Delannay (co-founder and general and artistic director, Festival Nouveaux Regards)
• Claire Dupont (director, Théâtre de la Bastille)
• Oleksiy Sorokin (co-founder and deputy editor-in-chief, Kyiv Independent)