The Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival’s Inspiration Forum, a platform intended for deep reflection on the modern world, has held a series of panels on the hot topic of AI. One such panel offered an industry perspective on the topic “Who Controls Documentary Film in the Era of AI?”, which revolved around how artificial intelligence is reshaping authorship, responsibility and ethics in non-fiction filmmaking. The discussion, moderated by journalist Marta Bałaga, brought together Hungarian editor and researcher Szilvia Ruszev, Czech experimental filmmaker Tomáš Rampula, lawyer and AI ethicist Veronika Macurová Křížová, and Czech documentary filmmaker Tomáš Elšík. The speakers converged on one shared concern: AI is not just a new tool; it’s a new collaborator, one that forces filmmakers to reconsider what it means to create, to own and to trust an image.

Ruszev, who is principal of the Shared Post-Human Imagination research project at Bournemouth University, described her research into how artists and academics perceive AI’s role in creative industries. “We realised that filmmakers, lawyers and computer scientists often use the same words but mean entirely different things,” she noted. “For a developer, a book becomes a data set, not a copyrighted work. To discuss ownership, we first have to translate our languages.”

Rampula, whose new experimental short Snowblind, a dark fantasy inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, premiered at Ji.hlava, described his relationship with AI as “a dialogue with a partner”. He compared prompting an algorithm to “finding a form hidden inside stone”. Yet he also acknowledged the tension between control and unpredictability: “I don’t believe in the absolute author any more; I just try to find the right resonance between me and the tool.” Elšík took a pragmatic stance, framing AI as another step in the long continuum of cinematic manipulation. “Editing manipulates reality from the very beginning,” he said. “AI is another method of manipulation or creation, expanding what film can do,” he added, opining that documentary remains a cinematic art form, not journalism, and so it’s allowed to use artifice as long as the audience is aware of it. Transparency, he added, is essential: the problem arises “only when the audience is deceived”.

Legal expert Macurová Křížová argued that transparency and responsibility must become central principles of documentary practice. European legislation, such as the forthcoming AI Act, already distinguishes between “artistic” and “manipulative” uses of synthetic media, but real-world enforcement remains uncertain. “The challenge is to find practical ways of labelling and contextualising AI-generated content,” she said. “A disclaimer at the start of a film may not be enough.” She also raised a sensitive question about posthumous representation. “If we use the voice of someone who has died, whose consent matters? The person’s, the family’s or the filmmaker’s?” For her, ethical frameworks must evolve in tandem with the law: “We can’t wait for regulation to catch up. The creative sector needs its own moral compass.”

The discussion returned repeatedly to the viewer’s trust, a core value of documentary cinema. “When I can no longer rely on my senses, I rely on the credibility of the author,” one participant from the audience remarked, a sentiment that resonated with all of the panellists. Ruszev agreed: “We’ve always grappled with bias and manipulation in documentary; AI only makes those questions more visible.” While acknowledging artificial intelligence’s creative potential, the speakers warned against ignoring its environmental and social costs. “Clouds are not clouds,” Rampula cautioned. “They’re data centres that consume enormous amounts of energy. We can’t talk about ethics without sustainability.” By the session’s close, consensus emerged that AI will remain embedded in filmmaking, but the terms of engagement must stay human. As Macurová Křížová suggested, transparency may become the new measure of authorship, a guiding principle for creators navigating the blurred boundary between artifice and authenticity.