
Join Us
Two day screenings and roundtables in collaboration with the Locarno Film Festival, UCLA Film & Television Archive, and UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television convene an international dialogue on AI and cinema, bringing together critique and practice to shape sustainable approaches to production, distribution, and creative work.
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.
Session Details
The sessions are organized as conversations around three interrelated themes, investigating our relationship with technology both past and present and its implications for our political, ethical and creative lives.
Session 1
Visions of AI Film Culture: Examining How AI Reshapes our Imagination of Cinema and its Possibilities
October 24, 2025 / 4–5:30pm
Darren Star Theater, UCLA
Session 2
AI’s Impact on Film Culture — Taking Stock of Current Challenges and Concerns, from Labor Conditions to creative Practices
October 25, 2025 / 2–3:30pm
Darren Star Theater, UCLA
Session 3
Strategies for a Sustainable AI Future — Exploring Alternative Models, Collective Strategies, and Ethical Frameworks for Moving Forward
October 25, 2025 / 4–5:30pm
Darren Star Theater, UCLA
Screening Details
The screening program presents a selection of archival and contemporary short films and video essays that explore the intersection of technology, AI and film history. Through documentary, experimental and artistic means, the selected works investigate our relationship with technology, its historical legacies and its implications for the political, ethical and stylistic fabric of our time.
Screening Day 1
Visions of the Future: Then and Now
October 24, 2025 / 7:30–9:30pm
Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum
This screening includes Q&A with filmmaker Allison de Fren, filmmakers and programmers Evelyn Kreutzer and Kevin B. Lee, Professor Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli, vice chair of UCLA Cinema and Media Studies, and Professor Amy Villarejo, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Series programmed by Evelyn Kreutzer, Kevin B. Lee, Maya Montañez Smukler, Mark Quigley and Nicole Ucedo.
Screening Day 2
REAL by Adele Tulli
October 25, 2025 / 7:30–9:30pm
Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum
This screening features Real by Adele Tulli, which had its world premiere at the 77th Locarno Film Festival. It will be followed by a Q&A with the director, moderated by Kevin B. Lee.
*Admission to the screenings is free. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.
Speakers
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 Adele TulliDirectorAdele Tulli is a film director and researcher, interested in experimentation in the field of creative documentary and contemporary visual culture. Following an MA in Documentary at Goldsmiths and a practice-based PhD at Roehampton University, she now teaches non-fiction and experimental cinema. Her short films 365 WITHOUT 377 (2011) and REBEL MENOPAUSE (2014) have screened at numerous festivals and won several awards. Tulli’s feature debut, NORMAL (2019), a striking journey through gender norms and stereotypes in contemporary Italy, premiered at the Berlinale and went on to win multiple international awards. In 2024, she released REAL (2024), a visionary documentary exploring the human experience in the digital era. The film premiered in competition at the Locarno Film Festival and later screened in numerous festivals worldwide, receiving several awards including the Jury Prize at the Villa Medici Festival, the Casa Rossa Prize at the Bellaria Film Festival, and nominations for both the Nastri d’Argento and the David di Donatello awards. 
 Tulli’s works have been screened and exhibited across major institutions, museums, and international film festivals, including: the Berlinale – Berlin International Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, IDFA (Amsterdam), Fondazione Prada (Milan), CPH:DOX (Copenhagen), MAXXI Museum (Rome), Lincoln Center (New York), and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), among others.
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 Allison de FrenProfessor of Media Arts & Culture at Occidental CollegeAllison de Fren is a media maker and scholar, whose work often focuses on the intersection of gender, media, and technology. Her documentaries and audiovisual essays have screened internationally at film festivals, galleries, museums, and universities, and her writing has appeared in printed and on-line journals and anthologies. She is currently a Professor in the Media Arts & Culture Department at Occidental College in Los Angeles. 
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 Doug GoodwinSpecial Faculty at California Institute of The ArtsDoug creates films and interactive works investigating how technological mediation shapes truth, authenticity, and representation. His practice spans computational photography, artificial intelligence, and interactive media. Early projects include a computational novel that passes for Jane Austen but without the narrative. Recent work like “Artifact #1” transforms iconic cinema into abstract studies of light and motion, while “Nearest Neighbor” (with Rebecca Baron) explores the otherness of language, birds, and AI. With a background in experimental theater and writing, he explores “authentic synthesis” between technological possibility and human experience. He was the first Fletcher Jones Scholar of Computation at Scripps College and is a graduate of CalArts’ Experimental Writing program. 
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 Evelyn KreutzerPostdoctoral ResearcherEvelyn Kreutzer is a postdoctoral researcher and video essayist/filmmaker at the Università della Svizzera italiana. She is a co-leader of the SNSF-funded research group “The Video Essay: Memories, Ecologies, Bodies” in Lugano and Lucerne, Switzerland, in which she focuses on AI and its impact on audiovisual memory culture. Her written and videographic work has been published in journals like NECSUS, MSMI, [in]Transition, and The Cine-Files. Her monograph Televising Taste is forthcoming with Lever Press. 
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 Fred GrinsteinCo-Founder of Machine CinemaFred Grinstein is a creative executive/ media strategist based in Playa Vista, CA. With a seasoned background in premium film/ TV and new ventures in emergent technologies like AI, XR, and Web3, his goal is to build bridges between traditional content and the modern creator economy. With two decades working in non-fiction media he is keenly focused on the intersection of authentic storytelling and new innovative emergent technologies. Grinstein is a Fellow with Starling Labs and Stanford University researching new prototypes for spatial storytelling and historical archival content via Gaussian splats. He is an Adjunct Professor at Chapman University, a top 4 Film School in the US teaching Cinematic AI. He consults with major unscripted production companies and non-fiction broadcasters like History and A&E assisting their evolutions into emergent technologies like AI. He also serves as lead instructor and co-creator for Curious Refuge’s “AI for Documentaries” online course. He is an active member of the Los Angeles Gen AI community, he and his business partner, Minh Do co-founded the collective and creator community resource Machine Cinema that has been throwing GenJam™️ events, workshops and day-long summits in LA, SF, and NY and beyond bringing together creatives and builders as well as the AI-curious. He’s also a keynote speaker and educator having participated at major industry conferences, festivals and universities. Previously he served as Head of Non-Fiction Programming at Steve Golin’s Anonymous Content where projects include “Undercurrent: The Disappearance of Kim Wall”, directed by Erin Lee Carr for HBO, “At the Ready” from filmmaker Maisie Crow, (2021 Sundance), and “Murders Before the Marathon” a 3×60 for Hulu. As an independent, he recently served as Consulting Producer on “How I Faked My Life with AI” (2024 Tribeca Film Fest), “Hidden Letters” directed by Violet du Feng (Oscar’s shortlist 2023), and Executive Producer on “Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power” co-directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Sam Pollard (2022 Tribeca Film Fest). Grinstein was VP of Development during the launch of Viceland, collaborating with the youth-skewing digital publishing team and Creative Director Spike Jonze; projects include ”Weediquette”, ”Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia”,and Ondi Timoner’s “Jungletown“. He was also a Senior Director of Programming at A&E for 5 years where he was responsible for hit series “Storage Wars”, ”Dogs of War”, ”Dog the Bounty Hunter”, “Crazy Hearts: Nashville”, and ”Psychic Kids”. Prior to network life, his early producing credits include Discovery’s “Cash Cab”, PBS’s “History Detectives” and Bravo’s “Make Me a Supermodel”. 
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 Holly WillisProfessor at University of Southern CaliforniaHolly Willis is the Chair of the Media Arts + Practice Division in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, and she studies reconfigurations of cinema and experimental media. She also co-directs the AI for Media & Storytelling (AIMS) initiative of the USC Center for Generative AI and Society and is a hybrid scholar/practitioner integrating critical theory and media production primarily using video, still images, and sound as forms of critical making. She is the author of Fast Forward: The Future(s) of the Cinematic Arts; New Digital Cinema: Reinventing the Moving Image; and Bjork Digital, and the co-founder of Filmmaker Magazine dedicated to independent film, and former editor of RES Magazine and co-curator of RESFEST and Flux Festival. She writes frequently for diverse publications about experimental film, video, and new media, and her work has appeared in publications such as Film Comment, Afterimage, Variety and The Normal School. 
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 Kevin B. LeeLocarno Film Festival Professor for the Future of CinemaKevin B. Lee is a filmmaker and media researcher who has produced nearly 400 video essays exploring film and media. His award-winning Transformers: The Premake introduced the “desktop documentary” format. His work has screened at the Museum of Modern Art, Berlinale, and International Film Festival Rotterdam, as well as websites such as The New York Times and Mubi. He is the Locarno Film Festival Professor for the Future of Cinema and the Audiovisual Arts at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI). He co-leads the Swiss National Science Foundation research project “The Video Essay: Memories, Ecologies, Bodies.” His new feature film “Afterlives” screened at BFI London Film Festival and DocLisboa International Film Festival. 
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 Lauren Lee McCarthyArtist / Professor at UCLALauren Lee McCarthy is an artist exploring social relationships in the midst of surveillance, automation, and algorithmic living. She creates performances inviting viewers to engage. To remote control her dates. To be followed. To welcome her in as their human smart home. To attend a party hosted by artificial intelligence. Lauren is the creator of p5.js, an open-source creative coding platform that prioritizes inclusion and access with over 5 million users worldwide. She is also Professor at UCLA Design Media Arts. Lauren’s work has been recognized by Creative Capital, United States Artists, LACMA Art+Tech Lab, Sundance, Eyebeam, MacDowell, Pioneer Works, and Ars Electronica, among others. 
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 Nik KleverovChief Creative OfficerNik Kleverov is a pioneering storyteller and thought leader making history with many firsts in AI. He is Chief Creative Officer of Native Foreign, a renowned agency celebrated for its innovative approach to brand storytelling. His career has taken him from creating iconic title sequences (Netflix’s Narcos) to viral commercial work, including the first ever AI brand film (for Toys”R”Us). Nik’s work highlights his expertise in merging creativity with technology. He is also a public speaker who has become a leading voice on how AI is reshaping the future of storytelling. 
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 Ranu MukherjeeDean at School of Film and Video at California Institute of the ArtsRanu Mukherjee works in film installation, painting and performance to cultivate an ecological, somatic, feminist and multidimensional perspective, connecting experiences of time, rupture, energy and futurity with the intention to work against exhaustion. She has presented solo exhibitions at the 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, de Young Museum, San Francisco; the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design; the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Tarble Art Center, Charleston, IL, the San Jose Museum of Art and Gallery Wendi Norris, who published her first monograph ‘Shadowtime’ in 2021. Recent film installations have been presented by Natasha, Singapore Biennale 2022-2023, the 2019 Karachi Biennale and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Mukherjee co-founded the artist avatar 0rphan drift in London 1994. ‘Score for Transitional Times’, her most recent production with choreographer Hope Mohr, premiered at the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University in January 2025. Mukherjee is the dean of the School of Film and Video at California Institute of the Arts. 
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 Shane DensonProfessor at Stanford UniversityShane Denson is Professor of Film and Media Studies and, by Courtesy, of German Studies and of Communication at Stanford University, where he also serves as Director of the PhD Program in Modern Thought & Literature. His research interests span a variety of media and historical periods, including phenomenological and media-philosophical approaches to media arts, film, digital media, and serialized popular forms. He collaborates with Karin Denson on generative media art projects and is a founding member of the non/phenomenal collective. He is the author of Bride of Frankenstein [film|minutes](Lever Press, 2025), Post-Cinematic Bodies (meson press, 2023), Discorrelated Images (Duke University Press, 2020) and Postnaturalism: Frankenstein, Film, and the Anthropotechnical Interface (Transcript-Verlag, 2014) and co-editor of several collections: Transnational Perspectives on Graphic Narratives (Bloomsbury, 2013), Digital Seriality (special issue of Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture, 2014), and Post-Cinema: Theorizing 21st-Century Film (REFRAME Books, 2016). See shanedenson.com for more information. 
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 Steve AndersonProfessor of Film, TV & Digital Media at UCLASteve Anderson is a scholar-practitioner working at the intersection of media, history, technology and culture. He is currently a Professor of Digital Media at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. He is the author of Technologies of Vision: The War Between Data and Images (MIT 2017) and Technologies of History: Visual Media and the Eccentricity of the Past (Dartmouth 2011) and co-editor of the anthology Reclaiming Popular Documentary (Indiana 2021). Anderson is also a video essayist, immersive media designer and founder of the appropriation-friendly public media archive Critical Commons. 











