Who Is Making AI Films? What the Cinema Shift Festival Data Revealed
We landed at Pearson Airport in Toronto with six huge suitcases and two small kids in the summer of 2022. We had visited the city before and knew, in a…
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Curating the Cinema Shift Festival
Light snow is falling in Toronto; it’s February 11, and although it’s warm, around 0 C, it feels colder due to a chilly wind. My son and I are eating…
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Cinema Shift Festival: The Beginning
I do not like AI film hype. That is probably the most polite way I can put it. I am especially allergic to posts claiming that if you are not…
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AI-Assisted Filmmaking: Access Is Not Craft
I am looking at two screens - on one is a video of an unknown person killing a proud eagle flying over an American flag and a giant sign that…
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Cinema Shift at Cinehill: AI‑assisted films meet an indie mountain festival
I'm sitting in the front row in the main square of the medieval Croatian town of Motovun. The sky is dark and full of stars. Suddenly, they're overpowered by a…
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Cinema Shift Festival 2026: Reflections on the Films We Screened
We were sold out, and people were eager to hear and see - more than half of our audience was from the film industry, while others came mostly from creative…
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What Cinema Shift Festival Submissions Reveal - and Who You’ll Meet in the Room on June 5
I watched all the submissions for the Cinema Shift Festival (June 5 Hot Docs Cinema, Toronto), and one thing surprised me: 34% of films deal with grief or loss. After…
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Why Curators Matter More Than Ever in AI-Assisted Cinema
One of my slides explained how companies today compete with Netflix, PlayStation, Influencers, friends, and direct competitors on their communication channels. Attention was the currency then, and it is even…
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How AI Is Changing the Future of Science Fiction Films
I jump between Foundation on Apple TV+, Star Trek on Paramount+, The Eternaut on Netflix, and Alien: Earth on Disney+. I also read new and old SF.I am also writing…
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The Rise of AI Nostalgia: Why We Long for Pasts That Never Existed
That is at least how I feel when watching my favourite one, Abandoned Films (update July 2026: unfortunately, most of the content is removed). It is a channel that reimagines…
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What Making an AI Movie Taught Me About My Script
xpected. In 2025, I made my own animated horror-comedy YouTube show, Zombie Monsters On Space Vacation.When a zombie outbreak breaks out in the first space hotel, James will do anything…
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Does Monster Hunters Work as a TV Pilot?
ively? With 30K views, it seems they attracted an audience. When I watch pilots from a screenwriter’s perspective, I look at things like structure, character arcs, story, the pilot’s promise,…
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AI Is About to Create a New Generation of B-Movies
B-movies are, by definition, low-budget, so we are used to cheap special effects. With AI, they could be cheap yet better-looking. AI could make spectacles more spectacular, generate even better…
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AI Films Are The Future Of Fan Fiction
looks like, watch Star Wars: Beggar’s Canyon. As someone who likes Star Wars - I watched the original trilogy in the theatres in the 80s - I found it very…
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Writing for AI Cinema: When Narrative Adapts to the Model
g for Production course at York University, where we watched many short films and wrote several of our own. The most common mistake we make, and other filmmakers do, is…
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