AFM Adds a 15,000-Square-Foot AFM House for Technology and AI Talks

The American Film Market is growing its technology corner this year. Its Innovation Hub is expanding into the first AFM House, a 15,000-square-foot space across from the market headquarters at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles, Variety reported.

The AFM is a five-day marketplace for independent films, run by the Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA). Its Innovation Hub is where companies show off new technologies to people who make and sell films. Nearly 20 firms will take part in the expanded space, and the market is adding panels on how artificial intelligence (AI, computer systems that generate or analyse content) is affecting the industry.

The hub is not new. It launched last year in collaboration with the Marche du Film, the marketplace that runs alongside the Cannes Film Festival.

Among the firms returning is Largo.ai, a Swiss company backed by Sylvester Stallone. Founded in 2018 as an offshoot of the Swiss university EPFL, it uses AI to help judge whether an idea can realistically be made into a film. Its tools include simulated focus groups, which are imagined audiences that react to a story, and projections of which actors could best suit a character. Sami Arpa is the company's chief executive.

IFTA's president, Jackie Brenneman, took over in January. The 2026 market is her first AFM in the role.

The market is also a place where films are sold before they are finished. Sales agents, the middlemen who represent a film to buyers, pitch titles to cinemas, streamers and distributors in every country. According to Variety, packages on offer this year include a new Armando Iannucci film and A24's adaptation of the video game Elden Ring.

The AFM says hundreds of millions of dollars in distribution and financing deals close at the market each year. A distribution deal decides who gets to show a film and where. A financing deal brings in the money to make it. The AFM's sessions programme includes more than 30 conversations with executives, creators and dealmakers.

Filmmakers who need somewhere to shoot can also visit LocationEXPO, which the AFM says connects them with film commissions, the local offices that help productions get permits, and production service companies that provide crews and equipment.

The new AFM House gives the technology side of that week a larger footprint. Whether the AI panels and new firms shape deals in the years ahead is a question that the coming years will answer.