Dinner with MEPs and European filmmakers
Events
7 October 2025
Secretary General's Digest
October 2025
Monthly digests
After rushing to yet another airport, and leaving my suitcase in the office, I realised that I was juggling a lot at the same time! In October, I travelled to three countries, delivered different presentations about our work at various events and prepared for our board and members’ meetings. That said, I enjoy representing the SAA and meeting audiovisual professionals from across Europe. Reading reports and news cannot replace the experience of meeting people in person and learning first-hand about screenwriters' and directors' situation in the different countries.
From Ljubljana to Skopje: Strengthening regional solidarity
It's not only the SAA who is turning 15 this year, our member AIPA in Slovenia is too! I was invited to speak at their conference in Ljubljana. It was a grand celebration, with many esteemed experts and guests attending. I presented the most inspiring transpositions of Article 18 of the EU Copyright Directive regarding fair remuneration. In a nutshell: Thanks to new laws in a few countries, a majority of EU Member States now have remuneration mechanisms with unwaivable rights and collective management in place. However, the situation remains far from harmonised. The review of the directive will need to address this fragmentation (more in LinkedIn).
At the end of last week, I went to the Euro Balkan Film Festival in Rome. There, I gave a presentation on how European collective management organisations are becoming a model for emerging CMOs in different Balkan countries. I presented the EU's perspective on CMOs, including the legal environment and the rights that SAA members collect for. It was a bit like a rehearsal for Skopje…
Indeed, several of the people I met in Ljubljana and Rome, I will meet again at our regional seminar on audiovisual authors’ rights in Central and Eastern Europe in Skopje in two weeks' time. We are in the midst of preparations of our seminar that is being organised with our members ZAPA (Poland) and AIPA (Slovenia), in partnership with AZAS - the audiovisual authors’ CMO in North Macedonia. It is good and important that the SAA is active and visible in the region. This empowers CMOs to persist in their efforts to fight for audiovisual authors’ rights and remuneration. It also demonstrates to their national authorities that the European community of authors and their CMOs are behind them.
SAA dinner with MEPs and LUX nominees
The EU Parliament announced the films nominated for the 2026 LUX Audience Award and on the same day, the SAA held the 10th edition of its dinner with MEPs and filmmakers at the EU Parliament, in partnership with FERA and FSE. Despite their many other commitments, several MEPs joined us with their staff. Three of the nominated films' teams were present, as well as SAA board members and external guests from organisations such as Eurimages and the European Film Academy. During the event, we issued a joint statement urging MEPs to defend EU principles and ensuring that the Commission and Council uphold their mandate to protect authors' rights, cultural diversity and artistic freedom, especially in the context of disruptive technologies such as AI. As our work, and likewise that of MEPs, involves constant movement, and our meetings are often brief, taking place during conferences or at standing receptions, the dinner that we organise provides a unique opportunity for us to sit down relaxed together, enjoy a meal and discuss current affairs.
Related
AI and licensing: SAA's response to Denmark's questionnaire
Building on the initiative of the Hungarian and Polish EU Presidencies to advance discussions among EU Member States on AI and copyright, Denmark followed up with a questionnaire about fostering a well-functioning licensing framework in the AI era. My colleague Luisiana prepared the SAA's response, and Annica wrote a blog post summarising what we learnt and how we responded. In short, we explained that there is no working system yet,, but what could work is: 1) EU and national pressure on AI companies to be transparent about their training data, 2) remuneration mechanisms for authors through CMOs, irrespective of the licensing model, and 3) the presumption that AI uses copyrighted content. We consider that a high-level working group including all parties is urgently needed to make progress on this issues.
4 November: Celebrating SAA's 15th anniversary
On 4 November we're celebrating our 15th anniversary with a full house (more than 130 people registered), see our event page. We have a message from EU Commissioner for Culture, Glenn Micallef, and a panel about 'Building the foundation' looking back at the 15 years, followed by a future-focused panel about 'Navigating digital disruption'. Both with an excellent lineup of speakers, including SAA Patrons and members, as well as representatives from the EU institutions. I am particularly happy that we commissioned Rocío Álvarez, a painter and illustrator, to visualise our anniversary and Lisette Ma Neza, a poet and musician, to conclude our conference. This is a great way to support human artistry (especially in this AI era). They are also both Brussels-based female professionals, part of the rich cultural diversity that our city offers!
Better to be in than out: the next AI Act Code of Practice
In early November, the EU Commission will launch the drafting process of the EU Code of Practice on transparency of AI generated content. As you may recall, the SAA previously participated actively in the working group of the Code of Practice for General-Purpose AI models with regard to copyright. Although we have been critical of the results of the drafting process of this code (see the joint statement from July), we still believe it is important for us to continue to be involved in any related process to represent the perspective of audiovisual authors' rights.
Warm regards,
Cécile