StepIn's return positions Locarno as cinema's moral compass—convening the industry's brightest minds to wrestle with AI, data ethics, and power structures in film. The think tank's focus on 'humanity over algorithms' frames the festival as the last bastion of authentic artistic curation against soulless tech consolidation.
Whispers from industry insiders suggest StepIn organizers are deliberately provocative this year—inviting executives who've profited handsomely from algorithmic distribution alongside filmmakers whose careers have been derailed by opaque recommendation systems. Some panelists reportedly needed 'convincing' to participate, suggesting the tensions run deeper than polite conference banter.
StepIn is now in its 15th year at Locarno (established approximately 2011-2012). Last year's discussions centered on risk-taking as a 'defining quality of independent cinema.' A key phrase circulating from preliminary discussions: 'The counter-algorithm is a human being who gives a damn.'
When an industry think tank makes 'power' and 'data' the centerpiece of its annual debate, you know someone's feeling pressure. The real question isn't whether algorithms dominate cinema—it's whether anyone in that room has the leverage to push back.
The Locarno Film Festival's venerable StepIn program is back for its 15th year, and this time around, they're not pulling punches. According to Variety, this year's think tank will tackle what might be the most existential threat facing filmmakers today: "Power, People, Data and the Future of Film." Translation? Hollywood's dirty little secret about who really controls what gets seen—and by whom—is officially on the table for public dissection.
Last year, StepIn zeroed in on risk-taking as independent cinema's defining feature. One of the strongest takeaways from those discussions? Playing it safe is killing the art form.
Now they're escalating the conversation to something far more sinister: the systems that make playing it safe not just attractive but mandatory for survival. The algorithmic recommendation engines that govern Netflix, Amazon Prime, and every streaming platform worth its subscription fee have fundamentally altered what 'risk' even means in filmmaking. The phrase already generating buzz from preliminary StepIn conversations is pointed enough to cut through conference-speak fatigue: "The counter-algorithm is a human being who gives a damn." It's the kind of statement that sounds profound until you realize it's also an admission of defeat—acknowledging that fighting algorithms requires actual humans willing to advocate for work that won't optimize engagement metrics.
In an industry increasingly run by quarterly earnings reports, that's either noble or naive. Possibly both. What's notably absent from the public conversation so far?
Any representatives from the platforms most responsible for this algorithmic stranglehold. StepIn has historically attracted programmers, critics, and producers—but whether anyone from Netflix's content strategy team or YouTube's recommendation engineers will face the music remains unclear. If Locarno truly wants to examine 'power' in modern cinema, they'll need someone in that room who's actually wielded it.
The stakes couldn't be higher for independent filmmakers. When algorithms decide what gets surfaced to 200 million subscribers, the economics of bold storytelling become nearly impossible. Festivals like Locarno—with StepIn serving as their intellectual backbone—represent one of the few remaining spaces where human judgment explicitly counters machine optimization. Whether that counter-programming translates into actual industry change or just well-attended panels remains to be seen.
