Artificial Intelligence and the Film Industry: professional restructuring, ethical dilemmas, and legal frameworks

ABSTRACT Theoretical framework Generative artificial intelligence is profoundly reshaping cinema professions by automating creative functions such as screenwriting, editing, dubbing, and post-production, while redefining value chains in the movie industry (Benghozi, 2019). This technological shift generates tensions between innovation, copyright law, ethical regulation, and cultural governance. Drawing on intellectual property law (Bensamoun, 2020, 2023), sectoral studies (CNC, Senate, CISAC), observations from the Cannes Film Festival, and collective bargaining agreements (SAG-AFTRA), this paper explores professional reconfigurations and regulatory challenges in the age of AI. How can cinema professions and cultural governance reconcile the disruptive impact of generative AI—automation of creative tasks and reconfiguration of value chains—with the protection of authors' rights, ethical standards, and cultural sovereignty, while managing enduring paradoxes between innovation and regulation? Managing paradoxes is particularly complex. The rise of AI in cultural industries creates persistent contradictions: fostering innovation while safeguarding authors' rights; democratizing creative tools while ensuring fair remuneration; accelerating production while preserving artistic integrity. These tensions are not temporary dilemmas but enduring paradoxes—contradictory yet interdependent elements that coexist and persist over time (Lewis & Smith, 2022). From a legal perspective, copyright law protects individual authorship, whereas AI systems thrive on collective datasets and derivative works, creating governance challenges around ownership, attribution, and value-sharing. Paradox theory suggests that "either/or" trade-offs are insufficient; a "both/and" approach is required, combining stability (moral rights, French cultural exception) with flexibility (new licensing models, algorithmic transparency) (Lewis & Smith, 2022). Such frameworks must also address emotional and ethical discomfort inherent in redefining authorship in the digital age. Neo-institutional theory (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) provides a critical lens for understanding these dynamics, emphasizing how coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures shape organizational behavior and prioritize legitimacy over efficiency. The sociology of artistic professions (Menger, 2002; Becker, 1982) highlights structural and behavioral dynamics of creative careers marked by uncertainty, project-based logic, and reputation mechanisms. Menger stresses that success depends on cumulative recognition rather than predictable returns, while Becker's concept of "art worlds" underscores cooperative networks and conventions enabling artistic production. Together, these perspectives reveal cinema as a field balancing autonomy and institutional norms, originality and standardization. Method: A cross-disciplinary qualitative approach combining documentary review (CNC, Senate, SAG-AFTRA), discourse analysis, field observation at Cannes (2022–2024), and literature review on AI and cultural industries. Results: Findings indicate increasing automation of creative tasks with uneven impacts across professions; value capture by platforms and AI developers to the detriment of creators; weakening of performers' rights, particularly in dubbing (synthetic voices, post-mortem contracts); regulatory frameworks remain incomplete, focused on copyright but insufficient regarding transparency, traceability, and consent; union initiatives (SAG-AFTRA) introducing protective clauses in collective agreements. Discussion: AI does not replace human creativity but reconfigures conditions of recognition, remuneration, and regulation. Governance must evolve toward ethical, inclusive, and anticipatory frameworks, intervene at model training stages, and integrate principles of the French cultural exception (moral rights, consent, transparency). Applying these principles ensures that technological innovation coexists with cultural sovereignty, preserving authorship and creative freedom. Major events such as the Cannes Film Festival operate as "rationalized myths," institutionalized rituals that dictate norms and confer symbolic legitimacy. Similar to the Grammy Awards in music, Cannes functions as a transorganizational structure channeling attention, distributing prestige, and fostering alignment among diverse actors (Anand & Watson, 2004). By ritualizing recognition and codifying categories of value, Cannes mediates paradoxes between innovation and tradition, global market logics and national cultural sovereignty, enabling adaptation to technological disruptions such as AI while safeguarding cultural identity.