The conference, run by its Credo 23 organization, also attracts Gus Van Sant as criticism of the authors grows.
He spent early 2025 dominating the Oscars like no other in history.
this year Anora Director Sean Baker has another mission on his mind: tackling the AI generation in filmmaking.
Baker will be one of several speakers at Justin Bateman’s No-AI Credo 23 Film Festival, which kicks off March 27 at the American Legion, Post 43 in Hollywood. says Bateman Hollywood Reporter The director will premiere the 2012 intergenerational friendship drama starlet He talked about how he made it and instilled humanity into all of his filmmaking.
Gus Van Sant and Matthew Weiner also join a similar lineup of discussions regarding past works and the future of entertainment, bolstering the list of filmmakers who are not only making statements about AI, but seeking to build a grassroots movement questioning it.
“I love when really smart people like to talk about it,” she says. THR. “That way, it’s like you don’t have a reason.” [as a filmmaker] To use artificial intelligence. We’ll tell you how to do it.
This will be the second edition of the festival and comes with a host of sponsors who all have a stake in the human-driven business, including Kodak, live events theatrical distributor Fathom, Tablet Magazine, The Teamsters and, most importantly, Custom Sync Slates, which has a particular interest in keeping the physical production going.
The edition will feature films that all involve, as Bateman said, a lot of craft. She says all profits will be pooled and distributed to the filmmakers.
She says Pittman’s motivation came from a need she recognized in the industry.
“I just asked, ‘Where are new filmmakers coming from who have fresh ideas that aren’t just about making films that are auditions for live-action content?’” she said, citing deals other festivals have struck with AI companies (Google recently said it would give $2 million to the Sundance Institute to educate filmmakers in AI, for example). “My programmers and I will sometimes look at a screening and say ‘Look at this, it’s a new way of looking at something’ and then realize it’s a world premiere! Other festivals won’t accept that. And it’s like, ‘Are we being offended?’ I just wanted to give a place to filmmakers like that.”
Bateman founded Credo 23 around the same time as the writers’ and actors’ strikes, both of which focused on artificial intelligence as a major concern. She hoped to use it to maintain human momentum rather than digitally generated work. (The Credo 23 seal certifies that generative AI was not used in the film.) The organization was a pioneer of sorts in Daniel Cowan’s AI Innovators Alliance.
The Bateman Festival comes at a time when Gen AI has begun to take Hollywood and creative work by storm, with Seedance videos featuring Hollywood celebrities becoming popular, Sora gaining a foothold through Disney’s deal with OpenAI and Super Bowl spots fully integrating the technology.
Credo 23 has continued to expand and now includes among its “board members” director DP Reed Morano, actress Juliette Lewis, and costume designer Ariane Phillips, in addition to Bateman and Weiner. The actress and director says she hopes to continue highlighting the creeping use of artificial intelligence and slowing its advance in artist-led spaces.
“Technology is an element,” she said. “The problem is that it trumps everything.” “I love salt but I don’t put it on everything I eat. On my car. On my furniture.”
“We cannot allow ourselves to jump the shark in this way,” she added.
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