American actor Demi Moore urged the film industry to find ways to work with and protect itself from artificial intelligence, instead of fighting a losing battle against it, ahead of the Cannes Film Festival’s opening ceremony on Tuesday.
“AI is here. And so to fight it is to, in a sense, to fight something that is a battle that we will lose. So to find ways in which we can work with it is a more valuable path to take,” said Moore.
The US actor, who received her first Oscar nomination for body horror The Substance after its Cannes premiere in 2024, is returning to the festival this year as one of nine members of the jury who will hand out the Palme d’Or top prize on May 23.
“Are we doing enough to protect ourselves? I don’t know,” added Moore, speaking to journalists. “And so my inclination would be to say probably not.”
The festival does not allow generative AI in competition, but the conversation about the technology’s role in filmmaking has been a dominant theme at the festival that positions itself as a gatekeeper of what qualifies as cinema.
Park Chan-wook, the first Korean filmmaker to lead the jury, reflected on how Korea has become a cinema industry powerhouse since he brought his thriller Oldboy to Cannes in 2004.
“Korea is no longer at the outskirts of the global cinematic industry,” he said, speaking through a translator.
“The reason behind it isn’t only because Korean film did very well and made it to the centre of the industry. It’s because the centre of the global film industry itself has expanded,” he said.
That made it possible for him to be named jury president, said Park, adding that he promised not to be biased towards the Korean entry, Na Hong‑jin’s Hope .
Comparing the 22 competition films and ranking them in first, second and third place might feel like a “meaningless” act, he said.
“But that’s also where the value of that lies, because it’s an opportunity to tell everyone and to beg everyone to please watch these films.”
