Pope Leo told a group of leading Hollywood actors and filmmakers attending an audience at the Vatican on Saturday that movie theaters are struggling to survive and more must be done to protect them and preserve the common experience of going to the movies.
Movie stars Cate Blanchett, Monica Bellucci, Chris Pine and Oscar-winning director Spike Lee also attended the rally.
The first US Pope, Leo, said that in a time of global uncertainty and digital overload, cinema is an important “workshop of hope”.
“Movie theaters are experiencing an alarming decline, with many theaters being removed from cities and neighborhoods,” he said.
“People are saying that the art of cinema and the experience of cinema are at risk. I urge institutions not to give up and to work together to reaffirm the social and cultural value of this activity.”
Box office revenues in many countries remain well below levels recorded before the coronavirus pandemic, and multiplexes in the U.S. and Canada just suffered their worst summer since 1981, not including coronavirus shutdowns.
algorithm logic
Léan said cinema, which celebrates its 130th anniversary this year, has grown from a play of light and shadow to a form that can reveal humanity’s deepest questions.
“Movies don’t just move images; they move hopes,” he said, adding that entering the theater is “like stepping over a threshold” where you can expand your imagination and find new meaning in even pain.
A culture shaped by constant digital stimulation risks limiting stories to what algorithms predict will be successful, he said.
“Algorithmic logic tends to repeat what works, but art expands what is possible,” he said, calling on filmmakers to champion “slowness, silence and difference” when telling stories.
The Pope also encouraged artists to honestly confront violence, war, poverty and loneliness, saying good films “do not exploit pain, but recognize it and investigate it.”
He praised not only directors and actors but also the vast number of behind-the-scenes workers whose skills make films possible, calling filmmaking “a collective effort in which no one is self-sufficient.”
At the end of his speech, a long list of guests met with the Pope one by one, and many offered him gifts, including Spike Lee who gave him a New York Knicks basketball jersey embroidered with “Pope Leo XIV.”
Ahead of Saturday’s meeting, the Vatican shared four of the pope’s favorite movies. Robert Wise’s family musical “The Sound of Music,” Frank Capra’s light-hearted “It’s a Beautiful Life,” Robert Redford’s heartbreaking “It’s a Beautiful Life,” and Roberto Benigni’s sentimental World War II drama “It’s a Beautiful Life.”
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