Boléro in the Debussy Hall. Notes from the 2nd WAiFF in Cannes

Forty musicians from the Seocho Philharmonia play Ravel's "Boléro" in the Debussy Hall. On the screen above them, fragments of Claude Lelouch's films from sixty years of his creative work are shown. Lelouch, the guest of honor of this edition, sits in the first row. He was led onto the stage by his daughter, Sarah Lelouch, who co-organizes this festival. A father who has filmed humans his whole life, in one room with a generation that is reinventing the tools of creation. A meeting instead of a division.

In the Debussy Hall, next to festival president Gong Li and Mathieu Kassovitz, sat Claude Lelouch. In the same row, in the hall where his daughter Sarah Lelouch, together with TechCannes and WAiFF, is building a new piece of the film world. This is not a scene from a classic film festival. This is the opening of the second edition of WAiFF, the youngest of the festivals in Cannes. WAiFF 2026 is already behind us. And yet something remains.

I was there for two days on behalf of Institut EuropIA and Institut EuropIA Poland and CEE. What I describe, I saw and heard up close.

Scale of Conversation

First, the numbers. Over 5,500 submissions from more than 80 countries. 54 official finalists were selected for the competition. 13 prizes were awarded, including a special distinction for Claude Lelouch, the honorary president of the festival. 400 accredited specialists and 130 members of the official delegation took part in the festival. Among the finalists was Polish creator Rafał Kijas with the film "Khlyst", nominated in the Best A.I. Fantasy Film category.

Julien Raout, the artistic director of WAiFF, puts it plainly: "Films from last year wouldn't have made it into this year's selection. Tools have evolved faster than any technology in the history of video production. AI characters in last year's entries looked stiff. Today you can feel emotion in micro-expressions, correct lip-sync, credible faces." In one year, a significant part of what previously disqualified AI in storytelling about humans has disappeared.

The medium is maturing at such a pace. Its institutional environment is also growing up. This festival was developed under the leadership of, among others, Diana Vicinelli Landi, Stefano Landi, Marco Landi, Sarah Lelouch, Julien Raout from Studio Laffitte, David Defendi from Genario Studio, as well as Jean-Edouard André (WAiFF Director), Rui Romano (responsible for communications) and Amira Gorani (responsible for communications at Institut EuropIA). Gong Li served as the festival president, Agnès Jaoui chaired the jury and the opening keynote of the festival was delivered by Jean-Michel Jarre.

Polish Showcase at Les Arcades

Parallel to the main events at the Palais des Festivals, cinema Les Arcades became the heart of screenings and debates. International selections, from films from Brazil, Korea and China to specialized documentary screenings (including "Napoléon III – Le prix de l'Audace" in the presence of director Edouard Jacques), were presented in three halls over two days. An important point of the program on April 21 in Room 2 was a showcase of Polish AI films, which I had the pleasure of co-curating with Andrea Bandirali (President of Institut EuropIA Poland and CEE and Ambassador of Institut EuropIA Officiel). As part of the Polish showcase, works by creators such as Krystian Wydro, Bartosz Grabarczyk, Piotr Soszyński, Michał Jan Owerczuk, Marek Mardosewicz, Jacek Kadaj, Bartosz Białobrzeski, Mikołaj Sadowski and artists such as Kobas Laksa, Marcin Nowicki and director Joanna Zygmunt were presented. Simultaneously in Room 3, intense debates and masterclasses led by, among others, Sarah Lelouch (TechCannes) and David Defendi (Genario Studio) took place, focused on the AI revolution in cinema and education.

Four Sentences That Say the Most

From two days of panels and ceremonies, I will remember four statements in particular.

Jean-Michel Jarre, in the keynote "IA, Imagination Augmentée," put forward the broadest thesis. He said that the decade we are currently living in will one day be called the golden age of AI, just as we talk about silent or black-and-white cinema today. Today, artificial intelligence has bugs and imperfections and that is precisely why it is the moment to engage with it, before it becomes too perfect. The one who plays with its limitations, instead of hiding them, is writing a language that the rest will learn.

Claude Lelouch, while preparing his 52nd film, is producing the first ten minutes entirely with AI. "I have regained my childhood," he said from the WAiFF podium. And he added: "AI is a camera that gives images before you have filmed anything. This will change cinema."

Mathieu Kassovitz, the director of "La Haine," threw out the most accurate sentence of the panel: "AI is very good at doing what we do. Averagely." This is not a compliment or a sentence. It is the diagnosis of a professional who spoke about his project The Big War, an adaptation of the comic "La Bête est morte !", for which AI allows him to return to a film previously difficult to realize in the classical production model. "A project that could have cost 50–60 million dollars today closes at 25 million," he said. "But it's not just about the cost. AI also generates ideas. It becomes part of the creative dialogue."

The challenge, he added, lies not in generating the image, but in control. "If I tell a character to go left, will they go consistently? Can I shoot a whole film this way? To do that, we have to build tools on top of existing models: layers, APIs, systems that allow us to control the result with the precision that cinema requires."

And Agnès Jaoui, opening the awards ceremony, thanked the organizers for allowing her to "express her anxiety and her ignorance towards AI." She added: "I feel terrorized by AI and all the fantasies it represents. That is precisely why I accepted the invitation to the jury. Whether we like it or not, AI exists, so it's better to see exactly what it is than to let oneself be crushed by fears and rumors."

This is the voice of ethical anxiety that does not become desertion. A position in which most European creators find themselves today.

"Singularité du regard"

The main prize, Best AI Film, was won by "Costa Verde," a ten-minute film by Léo Cannone about a Corsican holiday with grandparents. The same film also received Best AI Fantasy Film. Jaoui, announcing the jury's verdict, said: "There is technical skill, but there is also emotion and singularité du regard."

"Singularité du regard." Uniqueness of vision. In a world where anyone can generate any image, the question is no longer "who can make an image," but "who can say something with it." To say something, one must have their own vision. Not someone else's, not a borrowed one, not a statistical one.

In other categories, the jury distinguished, among others, "The Beginning" (Ibraheem Diab) for the emotional charge in a story about a refugee child and "A Dollar Story" (Qiu Sheng) for narrative precision. The full list of awards, from animation to soundtrack, can be found in the section at the end of the article.

The verdicts were issued by a distinguished jury chaired by Agnès Jaoui: Aïssa Maïga, Kavan Cardoza, Curious Refuge, Roger Avary, Reza Sixo Safaï, Roberto Amoroso, Joanna Popper, Elsa Zylberstein, Nam Na-Young, Serge Hayat and Ruby Yang — Oscar winner for the documentary short subject (2007).

Jarre’s Keynote: These Years as the Golden Age of AI

The festival was opened by Jean-Michel Jarre at Espace Miramar. His keynote bore a title that was a manifesto in itself: “IA, Imagination Augmentée.” He spoke of a historical moment comparable to the Lumière brothers’ train, the emergence of a new visual and sonic grammar. He reminded the audience of the history of resistance to innovation: painters who signed petitions against photography in the 19th century. Theater people who thought cinema would destroy them. And a personal anecdote: when he was the first to perform electronic music at the Paris Opera many years ago, the orchestra musicians turned off his sound system in protest, because “this is the end of orchestras.” Half a century later, he sat in Cannes and spoke about AI from the position of someone who had already won that argument once.

For Jarre, AI remains a neutral tool. The creator becomes a curator of vast “analog big data” saturated with their subconscious. His strongest thesis: these years, the decade we are living in right now, will one day be called the Golden Age of AI. Just as today we speak of silent or black-and-white cinema. Today AI has bugs, glitches, imperfections. And that is exactly why this is the moment to detourn it, to artistically pirate it, before it becomes too perfect. Those who play with its limitations today instead of hiding them are writing the language that the rest will learn.

Copyright and Debate at ProTalks

A theme that returned throughout both days of the festival was the law. Tim Kraft, a German lawyer, introduced a distinction crucial for the coming years of regulation in Europe: model training is covered by the European text and data mining exception, but remembering a specific work is copying and copying is a copyright violation. Jérôme Enrico, the president of ARP, spoke from the position of the French exception culturelle: France, as the world's third-largest film producer and accounting for 40% of European production, has a special role in this conversation.

The strongest thesis was put forward by Jean-Michel Jarre, who despite all his enthusiasm for AI left no room for doubt: "Human creation is the foundation of generative AI. At some point, we must stop being treated as data providers and start being treated as business partners." A new model is needed. "We must bring together cinema, music, books, video games, literature, journalism and reach global agreements. I don't believe that traditional copyright philosophy can be applied today, because most algorithms can no longer identify the exact source of data. We need a new model."

Speakers such as Nathalie Marchak, Enora Contant, Elena Lyubarskaya, Daniel Shi and Esther Yu from MiniMax also took part in the talks. The sharpest exchange of views concerned the moment when model training stops being "statistics" and becomes "style theft." Lawyers argued that the law does not protect style, only a specific work; creators responded that in the AI world, style is the new currency and its mass copying without consent is an existential threat to the profession. Everyone spoke from a different position — regulatory, technological, creative — and it was from this clashing of voices that the festival's most interesting questions were born.

Music as Memory

On the first evening of WAiFF, music did not function as a background. It became one of the main narrative forces of the festival.

Ravel’s *Boléro* accompanied images from Claude Lelouch’s cinema, creating one of the most symbolic moments of the opening ceremony.

Later, *Music as the Memory of the World*, a world premiere inspired by *Il Postino* and the music of Luis Bacalov, brought this dialogue into another register. Riccardo Acciarino, founder of OOVIE Studios, performed with the Seocho Philharmonia and ARKO Ensemble under the direction of Marco Seco.

This was not simply a musical interlude. It was a statement about how sound, memory, image and technology can meet inside cinema.

OOVIE Studios develops music-interactive AI films, working with the idea of “music you can see, images you can hear.”

This approach, where image and sound form one coherent whole, is particularly close to me. My studio is named Stereochromatic Solutions and the name comes from music and image, from their synergy and interpenetration. For several years, I have been organizing events and creating content where these two elements must be together. Without one of them, there is no power. They are compatible in a way that other pairs of media are not. The WAiFF music program, built by Diana Vicinelli Landi, is exactly this same philosophy in action. And it is in exactly this spirit that I would like to co-create the Polish edition of WAiFF Poland: as a space where technology, image and sound meet not next to each other, but together.

AI as Another Tool of Cinema

Artificial intelligence is not the next cinema. It is the next tool of cinema. Like all previous tools: film, sound, color, digital editing, CGI. It will be absorbed, it will transform cinema, but it will not replace it.

This way of thinking was well captured by Mathieu Kassovitz: "That's how it has always worked. When bluescreen appeared, it changed set design. When digital cameras replaced film, the workflow changed. Every technological change forces part of the industry to evolve. Younger generations won't necessarily care whether something is generated by AI or not. If it's not clearly marked, they might not even be able to see the difference."

Actors, set designers, cinematographers, every profession related to film production will have to adapt. Just as they adapted to every previous change in the hundred-year history of cinema.

WAiFF is also growing through its network of ambassadors. This is not a decorative list of names, but a real relational, creative and international foundation. These are people who help carry the festival further: into film, technology, music, education and XR communities.

Among them are Stefano Landi, Jean-Michel Jarre, Gilles Guerraz, Riccardo Acciarino, Élisabeth Guthmann, Joanna Popper, Stephan Bugaj, Jiajian Min, Gali Meiri and Jean-Claude Goldenstein.

This matters, because WAiFF is not growing like a traditional film festival. It is growing like a network. Through people who connect countries, skills, tools and creative communities.

What **WAiFF** Actually Said About Itself

The festival ended with three announcements. First: the WAiFF Los Angeles edition starts in October 2026. Second: WAiFF is building its own distribution platform, which Raout described as "Netflix for AI films." Five hundred films from the entries extending beyond the official selection are to reach the audience. "Young viewers are tired of AI-fakes made with minimal effort," said Raout. "They want real creators using AI as a tool to tell meaningful stories."

In this context, Marco Landi mentioned a number that stops one's attention: the festival received entries from countries where traditional film production is structurally limited — by sanctions, lack of access to professional equipment, or censorship. AI in cinema democratizes access in a way that classic production cannot offer: none of these barriers are able to stop someone who has a vision and access to a processor.

Third: WAiFF announces that next year's competition will include feature films. "We received a few feature-length entries, but not many," said Raout. "Next year we will open the competition for feature-length AI films over an hour long."

Gilles Guerraz, CEO of NextTrend, summed it up most strongly: "For the first time, I can't tell if a shot was filmed or generated. The technology is there. But without artistic intention, AI alone will not create a meaningful work."

Marco Landi put it all in one sentence that will stay with me for a long time: "The day will come when there will be no need for a separate AI festival. One day it will all simply be cinema."

And One More Thing

I keep coming back to that opening scene. "Boléro" swelling in the Debussy Hall. Lelouch looking at his own cinema. Forty musicians from the Seocho Philharmonia on stage with the wood, brass and strings of a classical orchestra. Ravel wrote "Boléro" in 1928 as a commission from Ida Rubinstein — as a ballet, not a concert piece. The original working title was Fandango. Seventeen minutes of two intertwining themes (18 bars each) on an unchanging snare drum ostinato repeated 169 times and an uninterrupted crescendo. He himself called it "an experiment in a very special and limited direction." Diana Vicinelli Landi, in an essay on music and AI, calls Ravel "an unexpected pioneer of the logic that would later define digital creation."

"Boléro" is actually an early equivalent of an algorithm, but an algorithm in the body, in the dance, in the gesture. It is a combination of algorithm and body and not just dry mathematics. In turn, Lelouch's cinema for sixty years built its rhythm thanks to recurring motifs from life. Artificial intelligence appears in this perspective as a natural continuation, rather than a violent break with film tradition.

Maybe this is precisely the answer WAiFF is looking for. Not in what AI changes, but in what AI adds to the long human line of repetition, variation and crescendo.

The future of cinema is not to be accepted passively. It is to be co-created. WAiFF, with Marco Landi at the helm, will one day be the world's largest AI World Film Festival.

WAIFF 2026 Winners (Full List):

• Best WAIFF Film (Grand Prix) & Best AI Fantasy Film: "Costa Verde", Léo Cannone (France / UK)
• Best AI Emotion Film: "The Beginning", Ibraheem Diab (Jordan)
• Best AI Action Film: "A Dollar Story", Qiu Sheng (China)
• Best AI Animation Film: "La Sélection Mécanique", Jules Blachier (France)
• Best AI First Film: "Another Detail", Denis Larzillière (France)
• CapCut Prize: "Apocalypse: The Art of Tovar", Nyko Oliver (Brazil)
• Best AI Micro-Series: "Devoured", Eun Young Lee & Heui Song Son (Korea)
• Press Prize: "La Tisseuse d'Ombres", Anne Horel (France)
• Best AI Advertising Film: "Life Is About the Ride", Aurélien Bigot (France)
• Best AI Feature Film: "Napoléon III: Le Prix de l'Audace", Jacques Edouard (France)
• Best 8th Art Film: "Present", Dario Cirrincione (Switzerland)
• Best Youth Film (Meilleur Film Jeunesse): "RendAI-vous", Marius Doicov (France)
• Best AI Soundtrack: "Steam", Fabio Bonvicini (Italy)
• Honorary Prize: Claude Lelouch.

Festival Creators & Partners

Charles-Ange Ginésy, President of the Alpes-Maritimes Department and the Maison de l’Intelligence Artificielle — The Alpes-Maritimes Department, under the leadership of President Charles-Ange Ginésy, is pursuing an ambitious innovation policy through SMART Deal, a comprehensive program driving the region’s digital transformation. As part of this initiative, the Maison de l’Intelligence Artificielle (MIA) — the first of its kind in Europe — plays a key role in raising awareness and building A.I. literacy, fostering innovation and cooperation within the French Riviera’s technology ecosystem while driving national and international momentum. Drawing on its cultural expertise through museums, cinema, departmental media libraries, and events, the Department also supports the intersection of artificial intelligence and artistic creation, promoting accessible use of these technologies.

David Lisnard, Mayor of Cannes.

Marta Solik — CEO and Founder of Stereochromatic Solutions, AI Creator, Vice President of Institut EuropIA Poland and Central Europe. Stereochromatic Solutions is a studio whose name was born from the union of music and image — their synergy, permeation and mutual completion. For several years she has been organising events and creating content where these two elements are inseparable. As she puts it: "without either one, there is no power." She works at the intersection of artificial intelligence, music and image, treating AI not as a tool but as a creative medium that redefines how images and narratives come into being. She builds a bridge between the Polish AI scene and European cultural institutions, connecting creators from Poland and Central & Eastern Europe with the international ecosystem of festivals, studios and partners who are defining the audiovisual language of the AI era.

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