The letter

One letter a week, starting soon.

The week's signal, what opened and what the festivals did, and the editor's note. No tracking, no ads, nothing else.

We keep your address, your language and the date you joined, nothing else. Every letter has a one-click unsubscribe link that deletes the record.

Rules and rights

Unions, academies, festivals, courts and regulators on films made with generative models, dated, newest first.

Unions1 Jul 2026SAG-AFTRAThe TV/Theatrical contract, ratified 91.42% to 8.58%, adds limits on synthetic performers on top of digital-replica consent and pay. In force to 30 June 2030.

Sources

CourtsMay 2026MidjourneyDisney, Universal and Warner Bros. against Midjourney: the case is in discovery, with a conference set for late May. The outcome since is not confirmed.

Sources

Unions2 May 2026WGANew basic agreement ratified by 90.38% (4,282 votes), in force to 1 May 2030. Its AI wording was not confirmed on the page we read.

Sources

Academies1 May 2026Academy AwardsThe 99th rules address AI eligibility and stress human authorship. Under the 98th rules, AI tools "neither help nor harm" a nomination.

Sources

Festivals9 Apr 2026CannesFilms in which generative AI drives the script, the image or the principal performance are ruled out of the main competition. Reported by a secondary source; the festival's own text was not read.

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CourtsFeb 2026Seedance 2.0Disney sends a cease-and-desist; the MPA calls it a machine built for systemic infringement.

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How we report

The section follows these rules on every page

  • Tools are named only as the makers state them; anywhere else the page says the tools are not stated.
  • A film is called fully AI-made only when its makers or the quoted source say so, and we say who says it.
  • We do not rate films we have not watched in full.