Camerimage Opens in Toruń With an AI Film About OpenAI
The 34th Camerimage Film Festival opened in Toruń, Poland, on 7 November 2026 with a screening of Artificial, Luca Guadagnino's film about the founding of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company.
Andrew Garfield plays Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive, and Yura Borisov plays Ilya Sutskever, one of its co-founders. The Hollywood Reporter reports that the film was shot on 35 mm, the traditional film stock, by cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed. That choice matters at a festival built around cinematography, the craft of camera work and lighting.
The opening ceremony took place at the Jordanki Culture Centre in Toruń. Before any human spoke, a Polish-speaking humanoid robot called Edward Warchocki walked on stage to deliver the opening address. Festival director Marek Zydowicz then joined it to talk about artificial intelligence in cinema. The ceremony also included video messages on AI from Francis Ford Coppola, Gal Gadot, Christopher Nolan, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Steven Spielberg and Ben Affleck.
Darren Aronofsky received the festival's honorary Award for Director. He also launched Primordial Soup, an AI studio, which makes him one of the film-makers at Camerimage who is working directly with the technology he was asked to discuss. Janusz Kaminski, the Polish cinematographer and two-time Oscar winner for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, received The Hollywood Reporter's Visionary Award for his contributions to cinematography. Karolina Gruszka received the Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region Film Award.
The festival also paid tribute to Andrzej Wajda, the Polish director, who would have turned 100 this year and died a decade ago. A performance by the Polish Radio Choir – Luslawice marked the anniversary. Poland's Senate has declared 2026 the Year of Wajda.
Camerimage runs from 7 to 14 November 2026. Zydowicz, who founded the festival, is leading it through a week that puts the machines of filmmaking, and the questions AI raises for them, at the centre of the programme.
For anyone who has never been to a film festival, Camerimage is a little different from most. Its focus is the people who light and frame the picture. Opening with a film about AI, and a robot on stage, gave that focus an unusually modern edge.
