The contradiction of AI in cinema: Creators fear it, but the market and the industry embrace it

On the first day of Cannes, artificial intelligence already sparked a debate between two jury members, Demi Moore and Paul Laverty. From that moment, the festival and the market running alongside it diverged in their reactions to the digital tool: while Cannes imposes limits on its use (even though one of its sponsors, which joined in 2026, is Meta, owner of Meta AI) and artists warn of its dangers, the market saw a rush of Chinese films made with AI and a handful of Western projects embracing its use. Filmmakers will be wary, but the industry has rushed to exploit AI.

In Variety, midway through the event, a veteran sales agent said: “A year ago some people used AI but were ashamed to admit it. Today they don’t even hide it.” And some countries, like China, are using it as a sales pitch. On the evening of May 14, the “China Night” event — the only gala night at the Cannes Market — took place. Attendees were taken on a tour through worlds of artificial intelligence and extended reality, and one of the robots from Magic Lab strolled along La Croisette. The event was not organized by just anyone, but by the China Film Administration, China Film Group Corporation, the China Film Producers Association, and Chinese acquisition, investment, and production company Wing Sight. In other words, the state.

A day earlier, footage from those AI-created films was screened: The Reunion Journey, promoted as China’s first animated film with content generated by artificial intelligence, and Legends of the South, presented as the country’s first documentary containing AI-generated material. Accompanying the screenings were several panels, including one titled “When AI Intervenes, Who Is the Author?” with filmmaker Li Shaohong — a box-office draw in her country and a regular at Western festivals — and Sébastien Raybaud, producer of Greenland and its sequel.

At the China Film Pavilion a screen read: “In the next five years, China’s AI-based film sector will become a 100 billion yuan market [about $14.7 billion].” A spokesman told EL PAÍS: “We are showing 180 films, and many [not specified] contain elements generated by AI.”

On the jury’s first day of appearances, Demi Moore said: “I always feel that against-ness breeds against-ness. AI is here. And so to fight it is to, in a sense, to fight something that is a battle that we will lose.” But in creative debates, for every Moore there was a Paul Laverty, her jury colleague, who argued the film industry and society at large should be deeply skeptical of the companies and tech billionaires who control the most popular AI services, “because they decide on the algorithms that affect our lives in the deepest way.” Spanish director Carla Simón positioned herself between both views when presenting her short Flamenco as part of a campaign to promote Spanish cinema abroad under ICEX of the Economy Ministry: her piece featured a Carlos Saura generated by AI. “We have to know how to use it to our advantage, leveraging its benefits and limiting its influence,” Simón said.

Thierry Frémaux, Cannes’s general delegate, addressed reporters the day before the festival’s opening about AI: “We must be alert, but at the same time understand it a little. What I can say with certainty about artificial intelligence is that we stand with artists, screenwriters, actors, and voice actors. We support everyone whose work could be negatively affected. Legislation is required.” The festival has banned films that used AI in creative processes from competition.

Back at the market, those limits did not apply. Production company Acme AI & FX was presenting Bitcoin: Killing Satoshi, from Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow), a conspiratorial thriller about the mysterious founder of the cryptocurrency, starring Casey Affleck, Gal Gadot, Pete Davidson, and Isla Fisher. The film was shot in March over 20 days in a London warehouse with gray cyc walls for nearly $70 million. Why gray cycs? Because all the sets were generated with AI. Entire departments, such as lighting, were eliminated; producers claim they saved over $200 million. Among other reasons, because there are 200 distinct locations recreated by AI. Acme AI & FX has another dozen projects in development.

In that great film bazaar held in the basements of the Palais des Festivals, there were screenings showing AI advances in animation — such as Critterz, produced by OpenAI — and in action films like Hell Grind, created by startup Higgsfield AI in just two weeks for under $500,000, of which 80% went to computing costs. Higgsfield has also signed an agreement with Chuck Russell, director of The Mask and Eraser, and his company Neumorphic AI to shoot two features, Hyperia and b. They will use AI tools ranging from world-building and creature design to editing and post-production, while real actors will be filmed on LED stages — common practice since Gravity and The Batman — with AI-generated environments around them.

A bolder example: the market premiered the first volume of Sh(AI)ved, a collection of short films generated by AI from photo features that ran in erotic magazines half a century ago. Alongside demos of AI glasses and AI translators, a series titled AI Summit for Talent was held, based on the premise that the AI revolution is already underway and focusing on the ethical use of the tool.

Films made with AI are not allowed in competition, though films about AI are, such as Sheep In The Box by Hirokazu Kore-eda, in which a couple who have lost their child contact a company that generates AI-created clones of the deceased. At his film’s press conference, the Japanese director said: “Thinking about AI is thinking about humanity. I was already interested in AI before I began, although I was drawn to it as the project developed.” He added: “The perception of AI differs between East and West. In the West it is associated negatively with dystopia, while in the East it is about coexistence between humans and non-humans. AI will transcend humanity and form its own community, at which point it will stop worrying about humans.” He said he never uses AI himself, but, “I asked a member of my team to have ChatGPT read my script and evaluate it. I expected a productive exchange. It was fine. It was interesting, but it did not give me any unexpected answers.”

Also using AI as a backdrop was The End Of It, by Maria Martínez Bayona, in the Cannes Premiere section: a dystopia about immortality in which actress Beanie Feldstein plays the protagonist’s AI-generated assistant. In an interview with EL PAÍS, first-time director Martínez Bayona said: “AI does not worry me too much. At the same time, I think we are at an embryonic moment. Everyone attacks AI out of confusion. I understand that protection is necessary and that we must wait for advances to settle, but, I insist, there are things that cannot be replicated — especially art.”

And art has tripped up Steven Soderbergh. At a special screening he premiered the documentary John Lennon: The Last Interview, which restores the radio interview given by the ex-Beatle and Yoko Ono hours before Lennon was killed. In the film, Lennon and Ono sometimes speak in abstract terms. To illustrate those moments, Soderbergh used Meta AI — backing he sought from his financial partner Meta, the tech giant and festival co-sponsor — for about 10% of the film, experimenting with what he described in an interview with Deadline as “thematic surrealism.” For other viewers, however, it was a reminder that, for now, art is not among AI’s virtues.

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