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EXCLUSIVE: Justine Bateman has been warning about the harmful realities of generative AI for the creative community long before most people started paying attention to the rise of the machines, and now the Violet director is sending out an SOS on the big screen at an AI-free film festival.
The CREDO 23 film festival, scheduled for its first edition in Los Angeles in 2025, promises to be a “real, raw,” filmmaker-centric and AI-free event.
“With studios, streamers, and film festivals embracing generative AI, the time was right for the CREDO 23 Film Festival,” Bateman told Deadline today about the inspiration and timely purpose of the new festival. “The festival creates a tunnel for human artists from the theft-based, job-robbing sabotage of AI. The festival celebrates the incredible human artists who make films and provides financial support so human filmmakers can keep making films.”
All of these grants will come from C23FF profits. “We support creativity, not conformity,” the organizers said, adding that the AI is “based on stolen work and simply regurgitates what has gone before.”
C23FF will take place March 28-30, 2025 at American Legion Post 43 in Hollywood, and will accept submissions from August 1 through Halloween, October 31, 2024. AI-free films can submit here , and badges for film fans will go on sale from November 1.
The CREDO 23 council, which defines itself as “a gathering of film and series professionals who hold filmmaking sacred and understand the responsibility to preserve the art form,” includes Bateman, Juliette Lewis, “Mad Men” director Matt Weiner, “The Handmaid’s Tale” director Reed Morano and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” costume designer Arianne Phillips.
AI was at the center of last year’s Hot Labor Summer and also played a major role in the now-concluded IATSE negotiations and the ongoing Teamsters negotiations this year. The past 18 months have seen exponential advances in content scrolling technology, fully embracing AI in the mainstream for studios and streamers as companies look to cut costs and corners.
A cut that Bateman frequently warned about in SAG-AFTRA’s battle with studios and streamers, and the contract that was eventually agreed to.
“From the very beginning, when we started talking to actors about what was going to happen, we’ve maintained that it was the key to the front door,” Bateman told Deadline’s Katie Campione last November, while his SAG-AFTRA contract and its AI clause awaited ratification (spoiler alert: it has been approved).
“You can do all the home renovations you want,” Bateman added, continuing the real estate analogy, “and you get other benefits in the deal. But if you can’t do that, if you can’t control what they can do without you, based on 100 years of performance… When you prompt, you’re just going to get a Frankenstein-like collection of performances. If you can’t do that, I said, it’s like giving them the keys to the front of the house. Because it’s not just about the actors. It’s about the crew, the drivers, everyone. If you don’t need to film the actors, you don’t need the set. You don’t need the crew, you don’t need the drivers.”
Amid growing backlash against AI during a year of industry contraction, Bateman, a former SAG board member, and his group last month launched the CREDO 23 VFX stamp to allow filmmakers to show audiences their films are AI-free, have minimal CGI and VFX and were produced by the union.
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To showcase the efforts of VFX/CGI artists without generative technology #AIthe CREDO 23 VFX Stamp is now available. Filmmakers creating VFX-heavy movies can now let audiences know their movies are human-made. Learn more at https://t.co/t6OUs9omBT. pic.twitter.com/xcDfS6I1Ur
— CREDO23 (@_CREDO23_) June 4, 2024
Bateman teased the new festival on X/Twitter last week.
