Perspectives of Academic Research and Education on the Lumiere Summit

Cinema and, more broadly, moving images have always accompanied major technological transformations. From sound cinema to digital technologies and platforms, these successive changes have reshaped the conditions in which works are created, produced, distributed and experienced. Artificial intelligence is part of this long history, but it is emerging in an environment already profoundly transformed by the globalization of cultural markets, platformization and the fragmentation of uses and audiences.

The Lumière Summit brings together governments, companies from the film, television and video game industries, creators and cultural organizations around a shared question: how can the value of moving images be created, shared and preserved over the coming decade? Research invites us to consider this value in its economic, cultural, social and democratic dimensions.

These transformations also renew longstanding questions about cultural sovereignty. From the international debates of the 1960s and 1970s on the circulation of cultural goods to contemporary controversies surrounding platforms, research highlights persistent tensions between openness to exchange, cultural diversity and the autonomy of stakeholders. Platformization, followed by generative artificial intelligence, is now shifting these power relations toward data, algorithms and technical infrastructures. AI does not replace earlier dynamics: it accelerates them, shifts them and, in some cases, amplifies them.

In this context, research can shed light on the Summit’s four themes—not to provide definitive answers, but to identify the knowledge currently available, the debates that remain open and the questions that now need to be asked.

I. The Summit’s Four Themes Through the Lens of Research

1. Creating at the New Frontiers — AI, a New Stage in the Transformation of the Creative Industries

The Summit’s first theme examines the ability of the screen industries to integrate technological change while expanding creative possibilities, preserving the role of creators and the value they generate. The programme focuses in particular on artificial intelligence, the creator economy, new relationships between creation and audiences, and creative authority.

A Transformation That Goes Beyond Creative Tools

Research suggests that artificial intelligence should not be considered in isolation from earlier transformations. It is entering sectors already reshaped by digitalization, industrial concentration and platforms, accelerating some of these trends. AI is now being deployed across a large part of the value chain, from writing and previsualization to editing, dubbing and recommendation, while increasing the permeability between film, audiovisual production, video games and animation. Existing research points less to the replacement of professionals than to a reconfiguration of tasks, skills and work organization. This may open up new creative possibilities and generate productivity gains, but it may also deepen technological dependencies, make cultural work more precarious or encourage standardization.

A New Distribution of Power Across the Creative Value Chain

The issue, however, lies not only in the use of AI, but also in the industrial structure that makes it possible. Chips, computing capacity, data centers, cloud services, models and training data form a highly asymmetrical global value chain. A limited number of players provide the infrastructures on which a multitude of cultural companies, producers and creators depend. This configuration is reshaping relations between cultural industries and technology companies. Established players may develop their own solutions, form alliances or adapt existing models, while remaining dependent on major technological infrastructures. Rather than a simple opposition between culture and technology, these relationships increasingly take the form of coopetition, in which stakeholders cooperate while seeking to preserve their autonomy.

Protecting Creation Without Freezing Innovation

Artificial intelligence is also renewing tensions surrounding intellectual property, remuneration, consent and recognition. Generative models rely on massive corpora of existing creative works, while their spread is transforming the economic conditions under which those works are produced. The challenge, therefore, is less about choosing between adopting or rejecting AI than about establishing conditions of use compatible with the preservation of human creativity. The Summit proposes four structuring principles—consent, transparency, remuneration and respect for intellectual property—around which a sustainable framework could be built.

Open research question: in the coming years, the challenge will probably not only be to determine what creators can do with artificial intelligence, but also who controls the infrastructures with which they will create and according to what rules the value generated will be distributed.

2. Financing Ambition, Sharing Value — Financing Works While Preserving the Capacity to Create Over Time

The Summit’s second theme addresses new financing models, partnerships and risk-sharing mechanisms capable of supporting ambitious works in a fragmented global market. It encompasses private and public financing, international co-production, new partnerships between broadcasters and platforms, and the issue of the missing middle.

Concentration Has Ambivalent Effects

The relationship between economic concentration, creative diversity and risk-taking has long been studied in media economics. Research does not establish a mechanical link between concentration and a narrowing of supply: large companies may have greater capacity to take risks by spreading them across a portfolio of productions. Conversely, concentration can reinforce bargaining asymmetries, shift value toward dominant players and weaken independent organizations. These effects vary across sectors, national contexts and platform business models. Research therefore encourages us to move beyond a simple opposition between ‘large’ and ‘small’ players and to examine the concrete conditions governing access to financing, risk-taking and the retention of rights.

From Project Financing to Industrial Capacity

This issue is particularly apparent in the missing middle identified by the Summit programme: between low-budget productions and major international franchises, ambitious independent works face growing financing difficulties. The challenge, however, goes beyond financing a particular budget segment. It concerns the ability of independent producers to build catalogues and long-term strategies rather than repeatedly seeking financing for isolated projects. It is not enough for works to be produced: the organizations behind them must also be able to accumulate expertise, retain a share of the value created, develop new talent and prepare future projects.

Public and Private: Rethinking the Relationship

Platformization has also led public authorities to adapt their support instruments, notably through financing and prominence obligations imposed on video-on-demand services. Research nevertheless highlights persistent tensions between economic and cultural objectives, national and European levels, support for production and the actual conditions under which works are distributed. Public support retains a specific role where market incentives alone cannot finance risk-taking, emerging creation, heritage, skills or collective infrastructures. Changes in the market, however, call for a rethinking of its relationship with private capital and new forms of international cooperation.

Open research question: how can policy move from a focus on financing individual works to preserving, over the long term, stakeholders’ capacity to finance, develop, own and derive value from their own creations?

Public support therefore retains a specific role: it can intervene where market incentives alone cannot finance risk-taking, emerging creation, heritage preservation, skills or collective infrastructures. At the same time, changes in the market call for a rethinking of the relationship with private capital and new forms of international cooperation.

3. Rebuilding the Path to Audiences — From Access to Works to the Battle for Attention

The Summit’s third theme focuses on the pathways through which works reach audiences, create value and build lasting impact. It brings together questions concerning theatrical exhibition, discoverability, the circulation of independent cinema and the role of festivals.

An Abundance of Content Does Not Guarantee a Diversity of Experiences

Cultural policies have long treated diversity of supply as a major condition for cultural diversity. This approach remains necessary, but it is becoming insufficient in an environment characterized by an abundance of content. Platforms, search engines, social networks and algorithmic recommendations now shape a growing share of cultural journeys. Diversity therefore also depends on the pathways through which works can actually be discovered: a work may be available yet remain practically invisible. The rise of AI assistants could intensify this issue by adding a new interface of mediation between works and audiences, alongside critics, programmers, media and communities of viewers.

Focus — What Future for Movie Theaters?

The rise of platforms and the fragmentation of viewing habits have revived questions about the future of movie theaters, amid growing competition for audiences’ time and attention. Research nevertheless suggests that theaters should not be considered solely in relation to streaming. The movie theater remains an economic link in the circulation of works: it can focus attention, create a sense of event and strengthen a film’s subsequent trajectory. It is also an infrastructure for cultural mediation, offering a collective experience in an environment increasingly shaped by personalized consumption. Like festivals, film clubs and other forms of human curation, it can foster discovery, serendipity, debate and encounters with difference. The question, therefore, is less whether theaters will ‘survive’ platforms than what role they should play in the new attention ecosystem.

Open research question: how can we organize the future coexistence of human curation and algorithmic recommendation, collective experience and personalization, so that an abundance of supply genuinely translates into diverse cultural journeys?

4. Building an Industry Worth Believing In — From Immediate Performance to Ecosystem Sustainability

The Summit’s fourth theme brings together issues that may appear heterogeneous: the preservation of film heritage, working conditions, equality, talent renewal, creative freedom and the environmental transition. They can all, however, be understood through a single question: what resources must the industry preserve and pass on in order to continue creating tomorrow?

Preserving Works and Skills, Supporting Tomorrow’s Creators

The first dimension of this sustainability concerns heritage. Cultural industries produce not only works, but also archives and collective memories whose preservation requires skills, infrastructures and investment that remain very unevenly distributed. Digital technologies and artificial intelligence offer new tools for restoration and accessibility, while raising questions about the durability of formats and control over data. A second key resource is human skills and creativity. In the face of rapidly changing professions, higher education institutions play an essential role in transmitting knowledge and renewing generations. Learning new tools must therefore be accompanied by conditions that enable creators to enter the screen industries and build sustainable careers, notably through cooperation among education, research, industry and public institutions.

Technological Transformation Is Also Social and Environmental

Technological transformations rely on material infrastructures and an international division of labor that often remain largely invisible. Resource extraction, data centers, computing capacity, data production and annotation, and content moderation all mobilize energy, resources and forms of work that can be precarious and are distributed very unevenly across regions of the world. The sustainability of the screen industries therefore requires consideration of this entire chain. Competitiveness cannot sustainably depend on shifting environmental costs and social risks onto stakeholders or territories with the least bargaining power.

Preserving the Democratic Conditions of Creation

Sustainability also has a democratic dimension. Creative freedom can be affected not only by explicit forms of censorship, but also by conditions of access to financing, technologies, distribution channels and major markets. Conversely, cultural sovereignty cannot justify political control over narratives and creation. The challenge is therefore to preserve creative autonomy in the face of both private concentrations of power and forms of state control, articulating cultural sovereignty with democracy rather than conflating the two.

Open research question: how should the performance of the screen industries be assessed not only in terms of their immediate production capacity, but also their ability to preserve their heritage, talent, freedoms and resources over time?

II. Looking Ahead — Four Shifts for Rethinking Tomorrow’s Moving-Image Policies

Existing research does not point to a single model for the governance of moving images. On the contrary, it highlights the diversity of national trajectories, the ambivalent role of platforms and the increasing complexity of relationships among cultural stakeholders, technology companies and public authorities. One common finding nevertheless emerges: a growing share of the conditions governing the creation, circulation and valorization of works depends on infrastructures that extend beyond the traditional scope of cultural policy. This evolution suggests four forward-looking shifts.

1. From Sovereignty Over Works to Sovereignty Over Cultural Capacities

Cultural sovereignty has long been understood as a state’s capacity to support domestic production, regulate its market and preserve the diversity of works. These objectives remain essential, but platforms, data, technical infrastructures and artificial intelligence models now shape a growing share of creation and circulation. Digital sovereignty and cultural sovereignty are therefore becoming increasingly difficult to separate. The aim, however, is neither technological autarky nor control over content, but the preservation of the capacities that enable a society to renew its creative life: to educate, finance, conduct research, preserve archives and ensure the circulation of diverse narratives. Sovereignty can thus be understood less as a policy of control than as a policy of collective capacities.

2. From the Right to Be Distributed to the ‘Right to Be Learned’

Cultural diversity policies have historically sought to enable works to be created, financed and distributed. In the age of generative artificial intelligence, however, the circulation of representations also takes place within training corpora: languages, imaginaries or cultural heritage that are poorly represented risk being underrepresented in generated content. Conversely, the use of works raises questions of copyright, consent and remuneration. The forward-looking notion of a ‘right to be learned’ provides a way of naming this tension. Without constituting a positive legal right or an alternative to copyright, it raises the question of how cultural diversity can be preserved within models while ensuring that creators retain control over the uses of their works. ‘Learnability’ could thus become a new field of research and international cooperation.

3. From Supply-Side Policy to a Policy of Mediation

In an environment of abundance, making a work available is no longer enough to guarantee its visibility. Digital infrastructures are no longer merely channels: by selecting, ranking and recommending works, they perform a function of cultural mediation. Cultural policies may therefore need to complement supply-side measures with a policy of mediation addressing, among other issues, metadata, recommendation systems, diversity of results, access to data and the plurality of curators and intermediaries. Such a policy is not limited to the digital sphere. Movie theaters, festivals, critics, schools, cultural institutions and communities of viewers also help organize the visibility of works. The challenge is therefore to preserve a pluralism of mediation so that a limited number of players or infrastructures do not become unavoidable gateways between creation and audiences.

4. From Research as Observer to Research as an Infrastructure for Public Action

In rapidly changing technological environments, public action requires independent data, international comparisons and evaluation methods, as well as spaces in which solutions can be tested with professionals and audiences. Research thus becomes not only an instrument of analysis, but an infrastructure for public action: it can document transformations, provide an evidence base for controversies, develop shared frameworks and evaluate new forms of regulation, mediation and creation.

Many scientific communities and higher education institutions, in France and internationally, are already working on transformations in the cultural and creative industries through complementary disciplines, fields and methods. Connecting these communities represents an important resource for the Lumière Summit. Within this landscape, the ICCARE research programme—the research component of France 2030’s national acceleration strategy for the Cultural and Creative Industries—brings specific experience in cooperation between scientific and professional communities. Its approach of ‘science with and for the CCIs,’ based on the co-construction of research questions, projects and methods, could contribute, alongside other initiatives and research networks, to structuring scientific cooperation around the Summit.

At the Summit level, this approach could help structure a form of scientific diplomacy for moving images, capable of producing shared knowledge upstream of international decision-making.

III. Seven Priorities for Extending the Summit

This section identifies several priorities that could extend the Summit’s discussions. They do not constitute an exhaustive action plan, but highlight areas in which cooperation among research, education, public policy and industry could be strengthened over the coming years.

Research

1. Building International Scientific Commons

Sustainable international cooperation requires shared objects of study and methods that make situations comparable. Research could help develop common indicators on cultural diversity, discoverability, the learnability of works, their circulation, market concentration and technological dependencies; shared evaluation methodologies; and datasets and observation protocols accessible to researchers and decision-makers. These scientific commons would allow public policy to draw on comparable knowledge rather than fragmented national assessments.

Possible follow-up. The Summit could foster connections among existing observatories, research centers and organizations in order to progressively develop common frameworks and an international mechanism for observing transformations in moving images.

2. Building an International Research Agenda on Moving Images

Ongoing transformations are still too often studied separately: artificial intelligence, platform economics, creation, audiences, labor, regulation and heritage each have their own research communities and indicators. The Summit could help initiate an international and interdisciplinary research agenda involving multiple regions and countries, particularly in the Global South, where contexts remain less well documented, through comparative projects on the effects of artificial intelligence on value chains and creative work, the evolution of movie theaters, new infrastructures of mediation, diversity and discoverability policies, environmental issues, and emerging forms of cultural sovereignty. Such an agenda requires effective academic freedom for researchers and access to the data needed for critical analysis of platforms and AI models.

Possible follow-up. An international scientific forum on moving images could regularly bring together research communities, industry stakeholders and public decision-makers to produce a state of knowledge, identify emerging research topics and circulate findings among national and international institutions. It could also produce policy briefs to inform future research and public-policy agendas at European and international levels.

Education and Training

3. Educating and Supporting New Generations of Creators

Higher education institutions in film, audiovisual media and video games create the environments in which talent can grow. Investing in the education of authors and creative collaborators means investing in the future creative capacity of the entire sector. The articulation of emerging technologies, established digital tools and analog practices should enable future professionals to preserve their autonomy, technical culture and artistic intent. Training in new tools should not lead to the abandonment of traditional techniques, whose teaching makes it possible, through comparison, to identify what AI genuinely introduces, as well as what it extends, transforms or automates. Educational institutions should foster communities of practice bringing together students, teachers, researchers, sector organizations and professionals, as well as open resources, monitoring spaces and partnerships between education and industry. Supporting new generations of creators also requires investment in original creation and in the public and private infrastructures that make it possible, investment in research and development, and the promotion of responsible and transparent AI practices that respect creators and their rights.

Possible follow-up. International cooperation among film and image schools, engineering schools, laboratories, creators and industries could provide opportunities to experiment with new ways of connecting technological research, creation and education. Over the longer term, these partnerships could lay the groundwork for an international research-and-creation infrastructure dedicated to image technologies, capable of designing and prototyping new tools and formats while helping train highly skilled creators and technicians.

4. Making the Legal, Ethical, Cultural and Environmental Dimensions of AI a Core Educational Requirement

Defining a common foundation of knowledge about artificial intelligence and integrating it into existing curricula would enable future professionals to learn not only how, but also when and why to use AI for screenwriting, visual development, world-building, image and sound creation, editing and final post-production. Given the rapid pace of technological change, it is not enough to simply train professionals who can use AI in their practice. It is equally crucial to help them build autonomy, continuous monitoring skills and a critical perspective on new tools, their effects on creative work, and their ethical and democratic implications. This includes knowledge of intellectual property, sovereignty and data security, as well as the effects of AI on cultural diversity and the environment.

Cultural Policy

5. Making Digital Infrastructures an Explicit Object of Cultural Policy

Platforms, recommendation systems, artificial intelligence models, metadata and technical standards must be integrated into thinking about cultural diversity. This does not mean treating digital companies as cultural institutions, but rather recognizing that they now perform decisive mediation functions. At the international level, several areas for action could be explored: transparency of recommendation systems; access to data enabling the assessment of effective diversity; conditions under which models are trained; pluralism in recommendations; representation of languages and cultures within training datasets; and the relationship among intellectual property, innovation and cultural diversity.

6. Making Education About and Through Images an International Priority

In a world where images are abundant, manipulable and increasingly mediated by artificial intelligence, knowing how to look becomes a fundamental skill. Visual literacy should be integrated with media and information literacy as well as with a broader understanding of artificial intelligence. The objective is not merely to protect audiences from misleading content, but to foster cultural curiosity, the ability to contextualise an image, an understanding of how recommendation mechanisms work and the capacity to exercise independent judgment.

7. Preserving Programming Freedom and the Pluralism of Venues and Forms of Mediation

Cultural policies must also preserve the diversity of pathways connecting works with their audiences. This means supporting the transformation of cinemas and festivals while also preserving their programming freedom and supporting forms of editorial curation, cultural mediation and experimentation that can complement personalized recommendation systems. In particular, the movie theater should be understood as a cultural and territorial infrastructure, not merely as an economic release window.

IV. Beyond the Summit — Four Pathways Toward Lasting International Cooperation

The challenges identified in this paper extend far beyond the capacities of any single state or national industry. They invite us to consider the Lumière Summit not only as a forum for dialogue, but as a possible starting point for more sustained scientific, cultural and professional cooperation. Several mechanisms, differing in nature and ambition, could extend this momentum by bringing together governments, international organizations, scientific communities, creators, industries and technology stakeholders around shared knowledge, experimentation and principles. These pathways do not necessarily imply the immediate creation of new institutions. Some could initially take the form of networks or joint programmes before evolving, if their usefulness is demonstrated, into more permanent structures.

1. An International Scientific Forum on Moving Images

The speed of technological and industrial transformation makes it necessary to regularly produce a shared state of knowledge. An international scientific forum could bring together researchers, industry stakeholders and public decision-makers around three functions: periodically assessing the state of knowledge; identifying new topics requiring research; and disseminating findings among national and international institutions. It could also produce policy briefs and foster comparative projects involving several regions of the world. The aim would be less to create a new scientific community than to connect research that is still often conducted separately on artificial intelligence, platforms, creation, audiences, labor, regulation and heritage.

2. An International Observatory for Transformations in Moving Images

This network could be complemented by a permanent monitoring mechanism, bringing together existing observatories, research centres, public institutions and professional organizations around shared frameworks and methods. Several dimensions could be monitored collectively: diversity and circulation of works, discoverability and learnability, market concentration, changing uses, the adoption of artificial intelligence and technological dependencies. The objective would be to progressively build international scientific commons, moving beyond the juxtaposition of national assessments and better documenting the differentiated effects of transformations that are largely global.

3. Toward a “Fabrique” for Film Diplomacy’

The Summit could also lay the groundwork for a permanent space for cooperation devoted to cinema and moving images as fields of scientific and cultural diplomacy. This “Fabrique” of Film Diplomacy would not merely be a venue for diplomatic dialogue but would serve as an interface among research, creation, public policy and industry, enabling knowledge to circulate, connecting international initiatives and fostering shared experiments. It could host international gatherings, cooperation programs or residencies and produce resources for decision-makers. The objective would not be to make different cultural models converge, but to create the conditions for cooperation around shared issues: the circulation of works, cultural diversity, technology, education and sovereignty. Cinema and moving images would thus become a concrete arena for scientific and cultural diplomacy.

4. Toward an International Institute for Experimentation, Innovation and Education Dedicated to Moving Images

Over the longer term, the Summit could spark discussion about an international institute combining technological research, creation, training and innovation. The Institute for  Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) founded in France in the 1970s, serves here less as an institutional model to be replicated than as a point of reference for considering the relationship between scientific research and artistic experimentation. In light of the development of artificial intelligence and the increasing hybridisation of production techniques, the challenge is to enable creators, researchers and technicians to participate in the design and experimentation with the tools that will transform moving images in the future. An ‘international IRCAM for moving images’ could thus bring together film and image schools, engineering schools, laboratories, creators and industries around research-creation, training and education projects. It would enable the screen industries not merely to adapt to technological change, but also to help shape them in line with their artistic, cultural and professional requirements.

 

Contributors

Philippe Bouquillion (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, inIdEx ICCA)

David Coeurjolly (CNRS, PEPR ICCARE)

Laurent Creton (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, inIdEx ICCA)

Kira Kitsopanidou (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, inIdEx ICCA)

Sandra Laugier (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, PEPR ICCARE)

Patrick Le Callet (Nantes Université, PEPR ICCARE)

Stéphanie Peltier (La Rochelle Université, PEPR ICCARE)

Giusy Pisano (ENS Louis-Lumière)

Mathieu Schneider (ENS Louis-Lumière)

Solveig Serre (CNRS, PEPR ICCARE)

Barbara Turquier (La Fémis)

Coordination

Monica Brinzei (DGRI)

Stéphane Canu (DGRI)

David Coeurjolly (CNRS, PEPR ICCARE)

Kira Kitsopanidou (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, inIdEx ICCA)

Solveig Serre (CNRS, PEPR ICCARE)