The 14th Beijing International Film Festival hosted an industry forum titled "Establishment and Breakthrough Amidst the Changing Film Industry Landscape," on Sunday at the Langyuan Station, exploring how the film industry can both establish new approaches and break from traditions with emerging technologies.

Cameron Bailey, CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival; Kurt Reed, a senior vice-president from Warner Bros.; Daniel Manwaring, CEO of IMAX China; Gong Yu, founder and CEO of iQIYI; Wang Changtian, president of Beijing-based studio Enlight Media; veteran Chinese director and producer Huang Jianxin, and actress-director Joan Chen convened at a roundtable moderated by film critic Raymond Zhou.

Participants shared their views on how AI technologies, such as Sora, a new text-to-video generator developed by US-based research organization OpenAI, will impact the film industry.

Wang said that AI is essentially a technology that can be another tool in the toolbox of filmmakers and therefore it cannot replace filmmaking. He worried that even though the application of AI in filmmaking can increase efficiency and reduce costs, AI generated content, which largely appeals to popular aesthetics, would lack individuality, and render special aesthetics rarer.

The entrepreneur also predicted that in the age of AI, competition will become fiercer as AI-powered productivity increases, which will make audience find it harder to choose what content to consume. "In this sense, content with unique intellectual property value will become more valuable," Wang said.

Reed argued that although AI can help improve filmmaking efficiency, it would not necessarily put people out of work at Hollywood. "AI cannot create storyboards by itself, and it is unable to complete all the other stage work," he said.

The executive emphasized the importance of the camera. "Only through real filming can we provide the most authentic experience for everyone." He cited director Christopher Nolan's method in Oppenheimer as an example. The director recreated the first atomic blast through constructing a physical bomb in exacting detail instead of relying on computer-generated imagery.

Echoing Reed's opinion, Manwaring said authenticity and genuineness in film production will matter more in the age of AI when everything becomes increasingly fake. It seems to be agreed by many filmmakers because the sales of large-format IMAX film cameras, which Nolan used for shooting Interstellar and Tenet, has gone up, according to the CEO.

Bailey said that AI can enhance the artistic qualities of films when guided by humans, as the technology does not always produce the desired outcomes on its own. Bailey noted that AI cannot directly provide audiences with empathy and emotional resonance. He used animated films as an example, noting that even those using innovative technologies still maintained a human touch.

Gong thinks AI will usher the film and television industry into a high-quality development phase fueled by technological innovation. He predicted that it is certain that machine intelligence will surpass humans, which will not even take a long time.

The founder of China's leading video streaming platform also pointed out that AI Generated Content (AIGC) technologies are a double-edged sword for young filmmakers. One the one hand, future young filmmakers may not be able to acquire mentoring from established directors, producers, and screenwriters because AI can replace them in writing scripts and storyboards. On the other hand, with the ever-powerful AI tools, fledgling filmmakers can also produce a complete work on a very small budget.

Huang, a veteran filmmaker credited with participating in 83 movies and producing 46 features within 45 years, agreed with Gong on that AI tools can democratize filmmaking and enabled the young to experiment. Viewing emerging AI such as Sora as digital extensions of humans' ability to express themselves, Huang advocated that we should embrace AI because technology has always been the backbone and driving force enabling film creativity throughout cinema history.

Chen said that AIGC has indeed exerted a huge impact on people's perception and cognition of truth and falsehood. The filmmaker predicted that AIGC can replace most of the simple, mediocre productions but it can hardly replace the best works and the industry's best creators. She also said AI can help the finest filmmakers push the boundaries of film production.

Chen also raised concern about the threat of AI to human beings. "It trains us all the time, not that it replaces us, but that we are becoming more and more like its way of thinking."

The forum was co-hosted by the organizing committee of the Beijing International Film Festival, China National Film Museum, and the Film Art Center of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles.