The Family Ties star and writer/director of Violet has been outspoken about the growing use of AI in the industry and her new film festival aims to stay “pure and raw.”
Actress Justine Bateman is among those who have spoken against the growing use of AI in movies and TV. Earlier this year, Apple had announced the release of a new iPad Pro product, and in their ad for it, which boasted about its computing power, the commercial symbolically showed how the new advancements in their technology would revolutionize art and “crush” human creativity. The ad suffered backlash and Bateman was among those in the entertainment community who showed displeasure with the message.
Deadline has reported that the Family Ties alum will go a step further to promote human-based art with a new film festival that she is launching. The CREDO 23 Film Festival will be debuting in Los Angeles next year and submissions for the event will be opening next week. This new event professes to be “a filmmaker-first, no-AI event” that is “real, and raw.” Bateman told Deadline, “With studios, streamers, and now film festivals, embracing generative AI, it was time for the CREDO 23 Film Festival. It creates a tunnel for human artists through the theft-based, job-replacing AI destruction. The festival honors the incredible human artists who make films, and will financially grant recourses to human filmmakers to continue to do so.”
Per Deadline, Running from March 28- 30, 2025 at the American Legion, Post 43, in Hollywood, the C23FF will be accepting submissions from August 1 to Halloween, October 31, 2024. You can submit your AI-free film here. Badges for film fans will go on sale on November 1.
The CREDO 23 Council will include Bateman, as well as actress Juliette Lewis, Mad Men boss Matt Weiner, Handmaid’s Tale helmer Reed Morano and Once Upon a Time In Hollywood costume designer Arianne Phillips. The CREDO 23 event is described as “a collection of film and series professionals that hold filmmaking sacred, and understand their responsibility to preserve the art form.”
Bateman had stated to Deadline, “I’ve maintained from the very beginning, when I started talking to actors about what would happen, that’s the key to the front door. […] You can do all these renovations in the house. You can get all these other gains in the contract. But if you don’t get that, if you don’t get control of what they can do without you based on 100 years of performances…you put in a prompt and you get out this Frankenstein amalgamation of performances. I said that if you don’t get that, you’ve given them the front key to the house, because it’s not just the actors. It’s the crew, it’s the drivers, it’s everybody. If you don’t have to shoot an actor, you don’t need a set. You don’t need a crew. You don’t need drivers.”