Film festival showcases what AI can do on the big screen

Artificial intelligence's use in movie-making is exploding. And a young film festival, now in its junior year, is showcasing what this technology can do on screen today.
The annual AI Film Festival, organized by Runway, a company that specializes in AI-generated video, kicked off in New York Thursday night with ten short films from around the world making their debut on the big screen.
'Three years ago, this was such a crazy idea,' Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela told the crowd. 'Today, millions of people are making billions of videos using tools we only dreamed of.'
The film festival itself has grown significantly since its 2023 debut. About 300 people submitted films when it first began, Valenzuela said, compared to about 6,000 submissions received this year.
The one-and-a-half-hour lineup stretched across a range of creative styles and ambitious themes, with Jacob Alder's ' Total Pixel Space ' taking home the festival's top prize. The 9-minute and 28-second film questions how many possible images — real or not — exist in the digital space, and uses math to calculate a colossal number. A stunning series of images, ranging from the familiar life moments to those that completely bend reality, gives viewers a glimpse of what's out there.
Meanwhile, Andrew Salter's 'Jailbird,' which snagged second place, chronicles a chicken's journey — from the bird's perspective — to a human prison in the United Kingdom to take part in a joint-rehabilitation program. And 'One,' a futuristic story by Ricardo Villavicencio and Edward Saatchi about interplanetary travel, followed in third place.
The 10 films shown were finalists selected from thousands submitted to Runway's AI Film Festival this year. The shorts will also be shown at screenings held in Los Angeles and Paris next week.
How AI is used and executed is a factor judges evaluate when determining festival winners. But not every film entered was made entirely using AI. While submission criteria require each movie to include the use of AI-generated video, there's no set threshold, meaning some films can take a more 'mixed media' approach, such as combining live shots of actors or real-life images and sounds with AI-generated elements.
'We're trying to encourage people to explore and experiment with it,' Valenzuela said in an interview prior to Thursday's screening.
Creating a coherent film using generative AI is no easy feat. It can take a long list of directions and numerous, detailed prompts to get even a short scene to make sense and look consistent.
Still, the scope of what this kind of technology can do has grown significantly since Runway's first AI Film Festival in 2023 — and Valenzuela says that's reflected in today's submissions. While there are still limits, AI-generated video is becoming more and more life-like and realistic.
Runway encourages the use of its own AI tools for films entered into its festival, but creators are also allowed to turn to other resources and tools as they put together the films — and across the industry, tools that use AI to create videos spanning from text, image and/or audio prompts have rapidly improved over recent years, while becoming increasingly available.
'The way (this technology) has lived within film and media culture, and pop culture, has really accelerated,' said Joshua Glick, an associate professor of film and electronic arts at Bard College.
He adds that Runway's film fest, which is among a handful of showcases aimed at spotlighting AI's creative capabilities, arrives as companies in this space are searching for heightened 'legitimacy and recognition' for the tools they are creating, with the aim of cementing partnerships in Hollywood as a result.
AI's presence in Hollywood is already far-reaching, and perhaps more expansive than many moviegoers realize. Beyond 'headline-grabbing' (and at times controversial) applications that big-budget films have done to 'de-age' actors or create eye-catching stunts, Glick notes, this technology is often incorporated in an array of post-production editing, digital touch-ups, and additional behind-the-scenes work like sorting footage.
Industry executives repeatedly point to how AI can improve efficiency in the movie-making process, allowing creatives to perform a task that once took hours, for example, in a matter of minutes, and foster further innovation.
Still, AI's rapid growth and adoption have also heightened anxieties around the burgeoning technology, notably its implications for workers.
The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — which represents behind-the-scenes entertainment workers in the U.S. and Canada — has 'long embraced new technologies that enhance storytelling,' Vanessa Holtgrewe, IATSE's international vice president, said in an emailed statement. 'But we've also been clear: AI must not be used to undermine workers' rights or livelihoods.'
IATSE and other unions have continued to meet with major studios and establish provisions in efforts to provide guardrails around the use of AI. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has also been vocal about AI protections for its members, a key sticking point in recent labor actions.
For Runway's AI Film Festival, Valenzuela hopes screening films that incorporate AI-generated video can showcase what's possible — and how he says this technology can help, not hurt, creatives in the work they do today.
'It's natural to fear change … (But) it's important to understand what you can do with it,' Valenzuela said. Even filmmaking, he adds, was born 'because of scientific breakthroughs that at the time were very uncomfortable for many people.'

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'It looks like you could've broken both of your ankles… that was a nasty, nasty fall,' said David Letterman when Campbell was a guest on his talk show, criticizing how no one came to the supermodel's rescue at the time. Campbell, who played off the accident with a smile, agreed with Letterman's observation. 'No one moved, no one moved a muscle in their face,' she said. 'They were just nervous until I started laughing, and then they started laughing too.' The model has since said that the fall had less to do with extortionate heel height, and more to do with the pair of white rubber stockings she was wearing. In a 2024 video recounting the incident — dubbed her 'Great Fall' — for British Vogue, Campbell explained that she couldn't feel her feet or toes in the stockings. Similarly, in a conversation between Campbell and Westwood filmed for British Vogue in 2019, the designer also placed blame on the stockings. 'The reason you fell is because you had these rubber tights… and your thighs caught together and so you wiggled on the shoe. And you've only got to wiggle slightly and you're over,' recalled Westwood, who likened Campbell's 'beautiful' fall to that of a gazelle. 'I was embarrassed… also it was not the right time of the month for a woman to fall,' said Campbell during their exchange, adding that she felt she should have practiced walking in the shoes more. After her initial descent, the model went backstage and tried the runway once again, demanding that Westwood come and retrieve her if she fell a second time. This time, the stockings were off, and Campbell was given a walking stick to aid her — though she refused to use it and held it at her waist instead. The next day, Campbell visited a newsagent in Paris with a group of models including Kate Moss and Linda Evangelista to buy the British papers reporting her fall. 'We were just howling,' she recounted of the images detailing her tumble, step-by-step. Related video Remember when Madonna's cone bra made its debut? Not long after, the Victoria & Albert Museum acquired the shoes to become part of their permanent collection. Elizabeth Murray, a curator at the museum, said in a video that someone from the V&A's textile and fashion team got in touch with Westwood 'almost immediately' after Campbell's fall was seen around the world — recognizing it to be a historic moment. In a newspaper clipping from the acquisition file for the shoe, the late Queen Elizabeth II reportedly saw them on a visit and said she wasn't surprised Campbell fell in them, added Murray. Her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, said they looked like someone was walking on stilts. Though the platforms became the star of the show, other parts of Campbell's ensemble, which included a bright pink feather boa and a Scottish inspired kilt, were also made famous by the fall. The kilt's tartan, called 'Westwood Gordon Pink' was woven for the designer by Scottish manufacturer Lochcarron and has a listing on the Scottish Register of Tartans, an official government registry. 'Naomi Campbell famously had a fall on the catwalk whilst wearing a skirt of this tartan,' reads its entry. 'There's about 2,000 pairs of shoes in the V&A collection which span about 3,000 years of design — but no doubt these are possibly the most requested and most well-known pair of shoes in it,' said curator Murray. She noted that platform shoes have existed throughout history and were Westwood's way of quite literally 'putting women on a pedestal' and elevating their status. Looking back on the fall, Campbell doesn't seem too fazed. She was quoted by the V&A, which hosted an exhibition celebrating the model's career earlier this year, saying, 'That fall is part of me, so I own the fall. It's OK, people make mistakes. The most important thing for me is just getting up and doing it again.' On her Letterman appearance back in the 1990s, she also boasted that the fall led to her booking two commercials. The V&A sell memorabilia magnets of the moment Campbell fell down (they are currently sold out) and the model even sported the shoes once more on The Jonathan Ross Show, where the host surprised her with the exact pair in 2013 (she stumbled for a moment, but managed to complete her walk). So, would Campbell ever fall on the runway again, as requested by media-hungry designers all those years ago? As she recounted to Westwood, 'I said absolutely not, it goes against everything that I stand for. I'm not falling purposefully.'