The International Film Festival Rotterdam opened its 55th edition with a ceremony that combined cinema and political positioning, marked by an explicit call to defend artistic freedom in an international context shaped by wars, repression, and setbacks in civil rights. The opening night culminated in the world premiere of Providence and the Guitar by Portuguese filmmaker João Nicolau, but before the screening the focus was on a speech that linked cultural celebration with present-day tensions.

Festival director Vanja Kaludjercic and Rotterdam managing director Clare Stewart led the opening. In her remarks, Kaludjercic directly connected the role of cinema with the need to preserve spaces for critical thought amid what she described as a global climate of political and social instability. “Precisely for that reason, we need the arts and, in our case, cinema. Film allows us to gain perspective as a collective. It connects us with the past. It helps us imagine ideal futures worth fighting for and, even more importantly, it reminds us how much we share — the common ground that unites us rather than dividing us in so many ways,” she told the audience, emphasizing cinema’s power as a tool for connection and collective reflection.

She also invoked words from John F. Kennedy about the role of culture, recalling a quote she considered especially relevant: “behind the storm of daily conflicts and crises, the dramatic confrontations and the tumult of political struggle, the poet, the artist, the musician continue… building bridges of experience between peoples, reminding human beings of the universality of their feelings, desires and despairs, and reminding them that the forces that unite us are deeper than those that divide us.” For Kaludjercic, that vision encapsulates the spirit of the festival, which she described as a meeting place where cinema makes it possible to engage in dialogue about how we live today.

The speech did not avoid direct references to current international events. Kaludjercic mentioned the war in Gaza, repression in Iran, and the situation in the United States, alluding to migration policies and the actions of ICE. “Just a few weeks ago, in Iran, people once again rose up to protest against an oppressive government and were met again with violent repression, which has led to what now appear to be tens of thousands of deaths,” she said, also noting the difficulty of maintaining contact with Iranian colleagues amid uncertainty about their safety.

She also pointed to a global rollback in gender equality, one of the festival’s thematic focuses this year. “Women’s rights are once again under attack. Too many hard-won achievements and freedoms are being reversed, dismantled, or nullified,” she warned, in the context of a special program dedicated to films made by women and to feminist traditions. According to her, these initiatives embrace playful and imaginative forms of expression as a means of cultural resistance.

Kaludjercic framed these concerns within a broader landscape of institutional and cultural deterioration. Referring to changes affecting major artistic institutions in the United States, she said it is troubling to see “how easy it is to destroy something, knowing how difficult it was to build and how much harder it will be to rebuild.” She added that today’s public discourse, dominated by cynicism and hostility, puts democratic values at risk — values that the arts can help sustain.

The opening ceremony thus made clear that, for Rotterdam, cinema is not only an aesthetic celebration but also a space for cultural and ethical positioning. “All these trends and many more converge in the celebration of cinema that we are delighted to share with you over the next eleven days… It is a program shaped by curiosity and by a belief in the many forms of cinema,” the director concluded.