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The email came through last week. The follow-up call may as well have been an email.
“There wasn’t a lot of insight into their full thinking process,” Stacy Spikes, the founder of the film festival Urbanworld, told Variety
about the Writers Guild of America East’s decision not to sponsor the 30th edition of the BIPOC-focused festival in October.
The decision to end its 12-year partnership with the New York festival stemmed from this year’s incorporation of an “AI Sidebar,” a new initiative launched in partnership with the New School that will feature the festival screening AI-generated films and shorts, along with conversations and tech demos for AI tools. Spikes said he found out about the WGAE’s decision through an email forwarded to him, prompting him to propose a phone call to clarify the move further.
“Given a 10-year relationship, you don’t want it to go up in flames like that,” he said.
But if not in flames, fractured it was left — the WGAE said its decision would stand. While Spikes acknowledged the guilds that have sponsored the festival don’t write “massive checks,” he worried that the move could impact the pipeline of filmmakers who try to submit their work to the festival — and risk policing them as they navigate a transforming industry.
“The danger is for people to start to tell creators what tools they can and cannot use is a very slippery slope,” Spikes said. “I think that’s a very hard thing to try and push down on the filmmaking community.”
The WGAE declined to comment on its decision or make anyone available for an interview. The union has been a vocal critic of the improper use of the technology, launching an #AINeedsHumans campaign to mobilize its members and making AI a pillar of its negotiations with Hollywood studios during its 148-day strike in 2023.
The guild pulling its sponsorship reflects how AI remains a third rail within the creative community, even as everyone from directors to actors to director-actor-executive hybridsembrace it in different ways. Film festivals have remained a battleground for such acceptance; Cannes banned AI films from this year’s official lineup, banishing projects like “Hell Grind” to its adjacent marketplace, while Tribeca screened the 75-minute AI-generated “Dreams of Violets” during its programming last month.
Spikes said the move resembled the industry’s earlier consternation surrounding new technology, such as the pivot from film to digital cameras, but that he has “never seen people say you can’t do this, or we’re going to cancel you, or not work with you if you allow filmmakers to do certain things.” The AI category has not been an issue for other sponsors, who Spikes declined to name.
Still, Spikes maintained he respected the guild and its role in aiding filmmakers, and that the difference between the two laid in what the role of a film festival should be. In his view, Urbanworld wants “make sure that our filmmakers have the best in class as far as tools and talent and everything to compete on the world stage.”
“How they make their movies is not something that we, you know, we don’t have a dog in that fight,” he said. “We don’t care one way or the other, but we do feel there’s a responsibility that when there’s emerging technologies and they’re starting to use it and they’re having conversations with themselves about it, we try and bring panelists and speakers and people to present both sides of the story.”
He hopes the guild eventually comes around to AI’s place within the industry — if not for Urbanworld, then for the filmmakers who will grow up using these tools.
“There’s young kids right now that are playing with this technology that when they get slightly older, you remove your influence if you’ve walked away from the conversation and say, ‘Here’s a guild. Here’s how we will help you get paid. Here’s how we will ensure that you keep your job. Here’s how we will fight for you,’” Spikes said. “Don’t walk away from those conversations.”
