A festival cannot address the future of images simply by making artificial intelligence a theme. It must show what this means for selection, context and discussion: which films reach the screen, what audiences learn about how they were made – and who gets to discuss them after the screening?
At Film Festival Cologne, which runs from 29 October to 5 November, the theme is “Real Life”. The question of AI is related to this, but the two are not synonymous: the festival is not promoting a dedicated AI section as the centrepiece of this edition. Rather, WDR describes it as part of the debate about the future of the film industry, whose production models artificial intelligence is calling into question. This distinction matters. A theme articulates a perspective; a selection rule or labelling policy would be a concrete curatorial decision.
“Real Life” is more than an opposing concept
According to WDR, the programme comprises 65 international films, series and TV productions. These include documentaries drawing on material gathered over long periods. “Little Sinner”, for instance, draws on twenty years of private footage and tells the story of filmmaker and journalist Daro Hansen between Syria and Denmark. Such films point to a form of cinematic reality that cannot simply be equated with unedited images: it also emerges through selection, editing and decisions about which traces of time are made visible.
For precisely this reason, “Real Life” is not a straightforward counterpoint to AI imagery. Documentary films, too, organise material; a fictional film can examine social or historical realities with precision. The relevant boundary does not simply lie between the “real” and the “constructed”. It also concerns provenance, manipulation and transparency: who has generated or altered an image, and what does the audience need to know to put it in context?
What the programme can substantiate
The publicly available festival information provides specific details about the programme selection in many cases: it lists titles, filmmakers, running times, countries and strands. Alongside long-term documentaries, WDR also highlights feature films that connect personal stories with historical events. The broadcaster also describes post-screening discussions, including a Q&A with filmmaker Bertrand Mandico after “Roma Elastica”.
These are visible forms of contextualisation: films are placed within strands, and discussions can open up production decisions or approaches to storytelling for debate. Yet the published information does not indicate whether submissions are systematically checked for the use of generative AI or whether such use is labelled in the programme. Nor is there evidence that any particular audience discussion specifically addresses a film’s use of AI. This gap is not proof that there are no internal rules or discussions. It merely marks the limits of what can be verified from outside.
The decision also lies in the small print
For a festival that makes reality its theme, transparency would itself be a curatorial practice: not as a blanket ban or a seal of quality, but as clear information about how a film came into being. This could help audiences assess different methods without pre-empting the aesthetic question. For AI is neither a single, uniform tool nor a ready-made answer to the question of what cinema should be.
With “Real Life”, Film Festival Cologne establishes a framework in which this question becomes legible. Its practical answer is, for now, to be sought primarily in the programme and the announced discussions; no publicly documented AI labelling or specific selection rule is evident there. The crucial question thus remains open – and at the same time is framed more precisely: not whether cinema must defend reality against artificial images, but which processes it makes visible and what responsibility it assumes towards its audience.
Original reviewed by the editors · 31 October 2026
