2025 Conference
Future of Cinema: From Locarno to LA
October 24-25, 2025
Current AI discourse often falls into polarized camps: Critics who reject AI and advocates emphasizing the advancements. In the context of film and media culture, anxieties about AI’s impact on labor, authorship, ownership and aesthetics stand in sharp contrast to promises of democratic access to cultural production and a new golden age for filmmaking.
Future of Cinema, a 2-day conference about AI in film, seeks to bridge these divides by bringing together experts from academia, the film industry, technology, media advocacy, and curatorship, to collectively address a moment of profound transformation.
The conference includes three sessions around interrelated themes, and two evening screenings featuring works presented by Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland’s preeminent cinematic event, and works by LA-based filmmakers and archives, fostering a transatlantic exchange in this global debate.
The event is a continuation of the Future of Reality Conference that took place at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival, in which AI emerged as a major theme. It is organized by Emma Broggini, Lucas Hagin, Evelyn Kreutzer, Kevin B. Lee, Maya Montañez Smukler, Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli, and Nicole Ucedo.
Impressions of the conference:
Photograph: The Lou Effect