AI Free or AI Made: The New Documentary Grammar?

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Documentary storytelling has always been rooted in reality. But AI shifts the terms of the negotiation between what existed, what can now be shown, and what audiences are still willing to trust.
Submerged pasts reconstructed, trauma represented without exposing its witness, vanished places brought back, this is not a production shortcut. It is an expansion of narrative territory, and a fundamental question about what images of reality still mean when reality can be fabricated in service of truth.
This session does not settle the debate. It moves it : mapping real uses, emerging rules, and the boundaries the industry is drawing for itself, including the trust contract with audiences it cannot afford to break. And it closes on the concrete question every independent producer is now facing: build internal capacity, outsource to AI platforms, or hold the line on AI-free work. Every choice carries a cost. Not choosing carries a greater one.