Within the framework of the Tokyo International Film Festival, the renowned Italian programmer and critic Carlo Chatrian — former director of the Berlinale and current head of the National Museum of Cinema in Turin — held a talk with The Film Stage (available in full here), titled “Tokyo International Film Festival and Future of Cinema Culture.” The conversation served both as a reflection on his career and as a lucid, hopeful meditation on the future of cinema.

As president of the festival’s international jury, Chatrian began by referring to his role in Tokyo: “Being part of a jury is, above all, about listening. It’s not just about judging films, but about understanding the people you share the table with.” He said his main task was to balance personal passion with the search for collective consensus. “In a jury you have to move fast, learn fast, and avoid misunderstandings. Empathy is as important as critical insight,” he noted, describing the work as “an intense and brief conversation, but a deeply human one.”

The Italian, one of Europe’s most respected film programmers, used the talk to reflect on the health of the film circuit. “Festivals are full — even more than before. But that doesn’t mean that films are alive,” he warned. “A film without an audience doesn’t exist. If it’s shown in an empty theater, it’s like a tree falling in the forest.” In that line he summarized a central concern: the gap between festival visibility and the fragility of distribution. Chatrian argued that many award-winning films never get released or have only a minimal life outside the festival circuit. “There are films that get lost because they don’t find their place. And that’s not the audience’s fault, it’s the system’s,” he said. According to him, the problem lies in the fact that “major distributors buy films in packages and then don’t release them. They keep them waiting. It’s as if they were taken hostage.” In contrast, he praised the work of passionate exhibitors and programmers who keep small films alive: “When someone truly believes in a film and defends it with conviction, you can feel it. Passion can change a film’s destiny.”

Still, his tone was never pessimistic. Chatrian affirmed that there is a way forward, and that it involves revaluing the role of the film curator. “Audiences are looking for a point of view — a narrative that tells them why a film matters. Festivals and theaters must offer context, connection, meaning. That can make all the difference.” He also proposed a return to the spirit of the old film clubs: “When I was young, my town had a film club on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Going there was an act of love for cinema. I think we need to recover that: places where watching movies is also an act of community.”

In the conversation, he also spoke about his new stage as director of the National Museum of Cinema in Turin, an institution he defines as “a living home for cinema.” He said it welcomes more than 800,000 visitors a year — including 90,000 students — and that his main challenge is to bring the art of cinema closer to a wider audience. “The museum can’t be a mausoleum. It has to be a place where cinema continues to transform,” he stated. To that end, he promoted the creation of a room dedicated to the 21st century, featuring video essays and clips from contemporary films, as well as a program that invites filmmakers to create short films using materials from the museum’s collection. “I can’t mount a huge exhibition on Albert Serra or Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, but I can invite them to show their world, their way of seeing cinema,” he explained. Chatrian also celebrated the renewed popularity of classic films, which in many cases outperform new releases. “In Turin we screened restored works by Kurosawa, and they were a phenomenon. There’s a hunger for history,” he said. For him, that trend confirms that cinema’s past and present can coexist: “Showing a classic next to a new film demonstrates that both are part of the same cultural dialogue.”

On a more personal note, he confessed that his relationship with cinema has changed since leaving the Berlinale. “I used to watch more than six hundred films a year. Now I can watch one in a theater, with other people, and enjoy it. It’s a luxury I had forgotten,” he admitted. He also spoke about the challenge of directing a cultural institution: “I spend more time between budgets and laws than between films. But it’s part of the job — if you understand the numbers, you can take better care of cinema.”

The conversation concluded with a reflection on what cinema represents today. “I still believe cinema is a popular art form,” he said. “The challenge is to find a balance between what the audience expects and what they don’t yet know they want.” And he closed with a phrase that encapsulates his view: “As long as people gather in a theater to watch a film, cinema will be alive. The format or technology doesn’t matter — cinema is, above all, an act of community.”