Founding members of the Creators Coalition on AI (CCAI) share their groundbreaking initiative to develop standards and best practices for artificial intelligence use in entertainment. Gain candid insights into the organization's mission to create ethical guidelines and artistic protections for creators. The session includes breakfast.

Filmmakers behind two 2026 Sundance Film Festival documentaries about artificial intelligence – Valerie Veatch (Ghost in the Machine) and Daniel Kwan (The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist) – examine the evolving technological landscape in this session that unpacks the intricate history and potential futures of AI in society.

A practical, behind-the-scenes look at how generative tools can support the artists making their films. Go inside the process as the filmmakers break down how they organized their workflows and tackled key challenges. This session highlights the steps and decisions that shaped the shorts, showing how AI can enhance an artist’s creativity and streamline the path to a finished film.

Virtual production and AI are often framed as tools—from LED stages and real-time engines to AI-driven workflows—but for independent filmmakers they signal a deeper shift in authorship and creative decision-making. This session explores how evolving production approaches influence cinematic language and creative possibility, and invites filmmakers to engage technology as part of storytelling shaped by intention, literacy, and creative ownership.

Dive into how generative AI is transforming our relationship to creativity and credibility, and why trust is becoming the next great currency. Nick Borenstein, General Manager of The Webby Awards, will present the 2026 Webby Trend Report, a playbook for creative excellence in the Intelligence Era. Following the report, a panel will discuss how creative technologies are shaping the industry.

Award-winning creatives Yelena Rachitsky (Head of Emerging Formats, Meta) and Eliza McNitt (Director, ANCESTRA, SPHERES) deconstruct their ground-breaking projects and examine how emerging technologies are reshaping cinematic language. Explore the evolution from VR to AI — and why human authorship remains at the center of storytelling.

AI can generate images, scripts, and music, but it doesn’t create the way humans do. This session with Rachel Joy Victor, a researcher and designer of computational narratives and emergent technologies, traces the evolution of artificial intelligence alongside human cognition to unpack what creativity actually is, where AI reaches its limits, and why embodied experience, intuition, and intention remain central to storytelling.

Join the team behind Dear Upstairs Neighbors for a screening and deep dive into artist-centric, AI-assisted animation workflows. This short film blends traditional animation with abstract expressionism using innovative video-to-video techniques. Learn how animation veterans and researchers at Google DeepMind developed custom AI models to transform hand-crafted art and music into "living paintings" while maintaining total creative control.

Experience the SAG-AFTRA-approved, AI-driven interactive thriller Whispers. This social session includes a murder mystery experience, food and refreshments, and insights into the future of generative interactive narrative from Peabody and three-time Primetime Emmy-Award winning creator and showrunner Bernie Su, Pickford AI CEO Stephen Piron, product manager Harrison Sanborn, and actor Stephen A. Chang.

Virtual production (VP) offers filmmakers a new avenue to achieve high production value on a smaller budget. In this immersive introduction to the technology, viewers receive a virtual tour of Studio Ulster, one of Europe’s most ambitious VP studios located in Belfast, Ireland. Representatives from Studio Ulster discuss the benefits, logistical issues, and challenges unique to VP. Viewers also hear from independent producer Jamie Harvey on his honest experiences working with VP. This session offers an informed, on-the-ground exploration of VP for independent filmmakers curious of the new technologies, including: LED volumes, real-time engines, camera tracking, in-camera VFX (ICVFX), and motion (or emotion) capture (MOCAP).

Join us for a behind-the-scenes look at how generative tools can support independent artists in making their films. Go inside the process as the team behind the short film MythOS breaks down how they leveraged generative technologies, organized their workflows, and tackled key challenges. This session highlights the steps and decisions that shaped their film, showing what collaboration looks like when incorporating AI tools, and how AI can enhance an artist’s creativity and streamline the path to a finished film.

As AI tools become more widely available, they also raise questions about ethical boundaries and legal concerns. Led by veteran entertainment attorney Elsa Ramo, this one-hour session covers important guidelines to follow when using AI in your filmmaking workflow. You’ll gain a clearer understanding of common pitfalls and red flags in AI generative content and what guardrails need to be established when it comes to ethics, ownership and technical safeguards. This session provides an overview of different AI use cases in various aspects from development, packaging, production, and distribution.

Sara Bernstein, President of Imagine Documentaries, hosts a conversation about the big question facing docs right now: Where's it all going? Bernstein has produced many Sundance-premiered documentaries, including Rebuilding Paradise, Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, Frida, and most recently, the Grammy-nominated Music By John Williams and Emmy-winning Jim Henson: Idea Man. Joined by esteemed industry panelists, Bernstein leads a straight-talk chat about what’s actually happening in the documentary business today. What are buyers really looking for? How do bold creative ideas and commercial goals meet? And what new paths are filmmakers taking to get projects financed, sold, and in front of audiences? Expect honest insights, market reality, and a look at what’s next.

Find new ways to bring your ideas to life without waiting for a greenlight from the powers-that-be. In this session, you will discover how LLMs (Language Learning Models) can support your creative process in ideation, research, and drafting while maintaining authorship of your work. Filmmakers Bryan Hill and Julius Pryor IV will walk you through using Generative AI tools as an assistant to help streamline your journey from script to pre-production.

In the first of two Story Forum sessions on the film, Veatch presents a deep-dive into the making of her documentary as well as the technology’s implications with regards to racial discrimination and climate devastation. During this session, Veatch leads two panel discussions with five participants from the documentary: Thema Monroe-White, Tiera Tanksley, Johnathan Flowers, Alli Finn, and Alix Dunn. These conversations offer insight into finding and shaping your story with your documentary participants, and prove essential for those interested in the systems surrounding the development of AI.

In this session, led by director, producer, and entrepreneur Kristina Budelis, you’ll learn some of the new ways documentary teams are using AI, with a focus on behind-the-scenes use. Budelis, who writes the newsletter Film Robots on AI & Film, will explain how these tools helped her save time in prep and post on a viral episode of PBS x Atlas Obscura’s Untold Earth, “It Looks Like a Desert. But It Has Thousands of Lakes,” which she’ll use as a case study in this presentation. She’ll break down how she used tools like Granola, ElevenLabs, Chat GPT, and Claude for things like research, transcription, translation and temp narration. She’ll also go over the importance of guardrails in regards to things like consent, disclosure, privacy and data considerations. You’ll leave the session with practical takeaways for how to improve your own documentary workflow, save time, and facilitate collaboration.

Emmy-nominated filmmaker Eliza McNitt unpacks the creation of ANCESTRA, her 2025 short film made in collaboration with Google’s DeepMind team. McNitt and collaborator Ben Wiley, Creative Director at the Google Creative Lab, discuss how the pair blended live action performances with generative AI visuals to tell a deeply personal story. The film, executive produced by Darren Aronofsky, premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival. A Sundance Film Festival alum, McNitt has described the project as the story of how “a mother’s love becomes a cosmic force in order to save her daughter’s life.”

AI is entering storytelling, but the real question is not whether machines can generate scenes. It’s whether we can use AI to help humans build better stories: more coherent, more original, and more emotionally honest. This panel explores how narratology (the study of story structure, meaning, and form) can guide human-centered AI tools toward new plot structures for the modern age, beyond inherited templates like the Hero’s Journey. This session will examine how creators can keep the moving parts of a story legible, stress-test decisions, and discover new shapes without flattening the original voice.

Are you a filmmaker with an interest in video game narratives? Are you a gamer with an interest in learning more about how storytelling and art come together to create compelling gaming experiences? In this comprehensive panel featuring the artists behind several innovative indie games, you’ll hear a wide range of perspectives on narrative design, worldbuilding and what goes into making a great game. Several leading video game designers demystify how games are written, the importance of specificity in character development, and how an indie game gets published. Whether you’re an avid gamer or a complete novice, this conversation will give you new insights into this exciting medium.

In the second of two Story Forum sessions on the film, Veatch presents a deep-dive into the making of her documentary as well as the technology’s implications with regards to international labor issues. During this session, Veatch leads a panel discussion with four participants from the documentary: Richard Mathenge, Mophat Okiny, Krystal Kauffman, and Dr. Milagros Miceli. This conversation offers insight into finding and shaping your story with your documentary participants, and proves essential for those interested in the systems surrounding the development of AI.

In this session, moderator Meagan Keane (Director of Product Marketing, Adobe Pro Video) takes us inside the creative process that shaped The Perfect Neighbor. Director Geeta Gandbhir and Editor Viridiana Lieberman break down how they organized and made sense of extensive footage, refined interviews, and built narrative momentum as the story evolved. This session highlights the tools, workflows, and editorial decisions that transformed raw material into a cohesive documentary, revealing how structure, iteration, and collaboration bring real-world stories into focus.

In this session, you’ll find out how these new formats turn people from passive viewers into active participants whose choices, movement, and emotions shape the experience itself, moving from a traditional audience to an “actience.” You’ll get a practical framework for building immersive, responsible, and transformative narratives, and you’ll learn how changing how you think about your audience can empower them to have more agency and influence on their stories, their lives, and how they interact with the world.

Sundance Film Festival alum and honoree Alex Rivera (Sleep Dealer, The Infiltrators) joins Story Forum to explore the critical debates surrounding AI and filmmaking. In this session, Rivera delivers a presentation on how thoughtful, socially-engaged filmmakers can approach this moment in which AI has become ubiquitous in modern life. Rivera speaks about the history and various debates surrounding AI, explores creative workflows, and discusses whether this technology can open up new possibilities in our creative practice.

Join us for a deep dive into the actor/director relationship, the lessons learned from decades on set, and their take on the future of independent cinema. Discover how a shared artistic language can push the boundaries of genre, and what it truly means to grow alongside your closest collaborators.

Led by Alton Glass, founder of GRX Immersive Labs, this session illustrates how filmmakers can become world builders using case studies from Glass’ own work. You’ll learn how to translate your unique voice across new tools and platforms and gain a greater understanding of how creators can successfully use virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality with intention to empower others. Drawing from his own career, which spans film XR, AI and immersive education, Glass unpacks how creators can navigate rapid technological change without losing their creative identity.

Trailblazing independent filmmaker Gary Hustwit joins Story Forum for a conversation on art, innovation, and experimentation in the age of AI. Hustwit directed Eno, a 2024 documentary that employed generative technology to create a unique cut of the film for each screening. The film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, went on to receive six nominations from Cinema Eye Honors, and was shortlisted for an Academy Award. In this moderated conversation, Hustwit discusses how he conceptualized and created the film, the challenges of incorporating bespoke tech into his filmmaking practice, and his predictions on the future intersections of film and technology.

We are drowning in Content but starving for the communal experience of Story. How can filmmakers capitalize on this new wave of Vertical Storytelling to give audiences the opportunity to consume serotonin-rich narrative Story over the quick dopamine rush that Content currently provides? This panel discussion explores these questions from the perspective of the creator and provides insights into how to bridge the gap between content creation and storytelling in the social media landscape.

Generative AI is reshaping the creative landscape, sparking intense debate about the future of artistry. Henry Daubrez, Resident Filmmaker and Creative Director at Google Labs, brings a practitioner’s eye to this tension. With two decades of experience bridging design, film, and emerging tech for global brands, Henry explores the reality beyond the headlines. Rather than preaching blind optimism or doom, he examines how human storytelling prevails amidst automation. He discusses the practical shifts in the creative process and why, despite powerful algorithms, the "human touch" remains the defining variable. Don’t miss this grounded exploration of creativity’s new frontier.