AGBO Chiefs to Headline TIFFCOM With Keynote on AI and Storytelling
The company behind Avengers: Endgame is bringing its take on artificial intelligence to Tokyo.
TIFFCOM, the film and television market attached to the Tokyo International Film Festival, has booked AGBO executives Chris Brearton and Dominic Hughes for a keynote on Oct. 29 titled “Technology and Storytelling,” Variety reported on Sept. 17.
Brearton is a partner at AGBO, the independent production company founded by Anthony and Joe Russo. Hughes is its chief scientific officer. The session will be moderated by Naman Ramachandran, Asia editor at Variety.
The conversation will focus on how artists working side by side with technologists can use AI, machine learning and other digital tools to push storytelling forward. It is aimed at working filmmakers and buyers, not just engineers. Expect practical talk about process.
Brearton joined AGBO after serving as vice president of corporate strategy at Amazon MGM Studios, where he oversaw the integration of MGM into Amazon. Hughes works with the company’s storytelling and innovation teams to develop and deploy AI tools inside the creative process.
That combination of business and lab experience matters because of AGBO’s scale. The Russo brothers and AGBO have generated more than $7 billion at the worldwide box office and produced 17 No. 1 worldwide openings, including Avengers: Endgame, according to Variety. The company is now in post-production on Avengers: Doomsday, set for release on Dec. 18.
TIFFCOM 2026 runs Oct. 28-30 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center Hamamatsucho-kan. It sits alongside the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival, which runs Oct. 26-Nov. 4.
TIFFCOM is a rights market. Distributors, producers and streamers meet there to buy and sell films and series for cinemas and television. Last year’s edition drew more than 4,600 participants from 46 countries and regions and hosted more than 7,700 business meetings, according to TIFFCOM. Visitor registration for this year is open. Exhibitor registration has closed.
Other strands are already set. TIFFCOM has selected 24 feature projects for the 7th Tokyo Gap-Financing Market, where unfinished films seek the last funds they need to shoot or complete post-production. It has also announced a conference session on global intellectual property strategy with Nippon TV, TBS and the Visual Industry Promotion Organization.
What makes this stand out is the pairing. Tokyo will hear from both the deal-maker and the scientist about how the next wave of blockbusters gets made.
