Cannes puts AI in the spotlight but says humans must lead filmmaking

In short: Cannes is treating AI as both something to manage and something to learn from, while insisting people must stay at the center of filmmaking.

What's going on

Cannes Film Festival conversations this year show a clear push and pull around artificial intelligence. Speakers in a widely covered segment said AI has already entered studios, editing rooms, and parts of the creative process. At the same time, they stressed the industry does not want AI to “lay down the law” in cinema.

Cannes is also giving AI a formal place in its industry programming. The festival’s market, called the Marché du Film, ran an “AI for Talent Summit” under its Cannes Next program. Organizers described it as a two day event about how AI could change how films are made, paid for, and brought to audiences.

On the showcase side, Cannes hosted the second World AI Film Festival, which screened works made with at least three “generative AI” tools (software that can create images, video, or text from prompts, like giving instructions to a very fast but imperfect assistant). The event’s discussion topics included artistic questions, technical limits, and ethical concerns.

What to watch

Film workers and filmmakers at Cannes also talked about job anxiety and a wider sense of crisis, alongside the idea that AI could be a collaborator rather than a replacement. A related signal came from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which said using AI will not automatically help or hurt a film’s awards chances, but a human must remain at the creative core. The next question is how festivals, studios, and awards bodies define that “human core” in practice, and what rules they set when AI tools are used more often.

Source: NYTimes