IMAX Partners with Runway for AI-Assisted Film Festival, Sparking Debate in the Film Industry

IMAX is hosting a "one-day global storytelling event" for "the world's best AI-assisted short films," and the very predictable backlash is strong

IMAX has announced an AI-assisted short film festival...and people are, unsurprisingly, very unhappy. According to their official website, IMAX is hosting Runway's third annual AI Film Festival which is a "celebration of the art and artists embracing new and emerging AI tools for filmmaking." Over six thousand films were submitted to the film festival, and ten were selected, which will be shown in IMAX theaters nationwide. Runway is a generative AI company that was founded in 2018, and each short film was composed using the software. The jurors for the festival include directors Gaspar Noé and Harmony Korine, the latter of whom has a first-look deal with Runway to release his second AI-assisted movie (the first being that movie with the scary baby heads). The announcement has received a considerable amount of backlash, which mostly consists of expletives that I cannot quote here. Though, one person did say that they would rather "individually pluck out their own eyelashes" than attend the festival. "Would literally rather watch The Room," someone wrote, referring to Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece that is largely considered one of the worst movies of all time (though it's won several Oscars in my house). "At least that was made by hand." "AI-generated content will never be art, no matter how close it replicates it," another person said. AI not only has ethical complications, but is largely bad for the environment. As the Earth continues to become hotter and hotter, we can all look forward to more images of hands with seven fingers and ChatGPT telling us to put forks in the toaster.

IMAX is hosting an AI film festival

IMAX is hoping to bridge the gap between AI and filmmakers by celebrating some AI-assisted and created films as part of the Runway AI Film Festival (AIFF) this August. Over the four-day festival, which begins on the 17th of August, AIFF will showcase a limited-run IMAX screening of ten winning films offering "a unique glimpse at a new creative era, selected by an acclaimed panel of jurors." Anyone outside the US may be out of luck, as it seems this is only an American promotion at IMAX. First established in 2022, Runway's AIFF is growing alongside the use of AI in film. Over 6000 films were submitted this year to be selected for the limited IMAX run, and despite people's aversion to AI, it appears it's going to keep creeping into certain aspects of the film industry like this.

Imax and Runway AI Sign a Film Festival Deal

Imax will run the shorts from Runway's 2025 AI Film Festival from August 17-August 20 at ten locations around the U.S., including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, Boston, Atlanta, Denver and Washington, D.C. The ten films that composed this year's festival will be screened as a bloc, including More Tears than Harm, a painterly look at a difficult childhood in Madagascar and Jailbird, about a chicken rescued from a factory farm to serve as a companion to a prisoner in a real-life British program aimed at compassionate rehabilitation. "The IMAX Experience has typically been reserved for the world's most accomplished and visionary filmmakers and we're excited to open our aperture and use our platform to experiment with a new kind of creator, as storytelling and technology converge in an entirely new way," Imax's chief content officer Jonathan Fischer said in a statement. "The quality, variety and storytelling of these films deserves a premium viewing experience," added Runway co-founder Cristobal Valenzuela. The announcement shows how the new tech revolution could play out differently than the last one did in Hollywood. While streaming often put exhibitors at odds with the major new players, AI tools will, at least, not necessarily antagonize theater owners, who could see them as a way to create product that will attract fresh audiences to theaters, though AI's personalization element could also potentially deepen at-home viewing. Runway, a New York-based company producing a slew of AI filmmaking tools, holds an annual film festival in New York and Los Angeles. This year's event, held last month at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York and the Broad Stage theater in Los Angeles, generated 6,000 submissions and drew crowds to both theaters. "Three years ago, this was such a crazy idea," Valenzuela said at the New York event. "Today, millions of people are making billions of videos using tools we only dreamed of." The movies are still evolving as sound and photorealistic images remain iterative processes for AI companies (the work was often dreamlike) though few doubt they will reach those goals. While many studios and distributors such as Netflix unofficially use AI tools, Runway in particular has been courting the industry, signing formal deals with the likes of AMC Networks and Lionsgate. AI generally has both seized and terrified the imaginations of those work in film, with many worried it could replace humans and humanity and others arguing it could unlock a new golden age of cinema.