Documentary in the Age of AI

Joshua Glick is a film and media studies scholar focusing on the comparative histories of film, television, and radio; nonfiction media; race and representation; and the civic uses of emerging technology. He is the author of Los Angeles Documentary and the Production of Public History (University of California Press, 2018). Professor Glick’s articles and reviews have appeared in Film History, Afterimage, Wired, Film Quarterly, Jump Cut, The Moving Image, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. In collaboration with the Center for Advanced Virtuality at MIT, he designed the online curriculum, Media Literacy in the Age of Deepfakes. He also co-curated the exhibition, Deepfake: Unstable Evidence on Screen, at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York. Professor Glick recently co-edited the forthcoming volume, The Oxford Handbook of American Documentary. His current book project explores the rising interest in documentary on both the left and right of the political spectrum over the last thirty years.

Ryan Laney is a VFX Supervisor at Teus Media, known for his innovative use of machine learning to protect witnesses in documentary films, a treatment developed for Welcome To Chechnya. In 2023 he won an Academy Sci-Tech Award of Commendation for his continuing work in that field. His extensive career includes equally challenging development on summer blockbusters at prominent studios such as Sony, Digital Domain, ILM, and Manex. Laney’s diverse background has shaped his unique approach to VFX. He enjoys challenges that require bridging across teams and domains. While at the forefront of tech, he remains rooted in the fundamentals and craft of filmmaking and storytelling.

Adam Bhala Lough is a Punjabi-American director known for award-winning films on major platforms like HBO and Netflix. Nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Docu Series in 2024 for Telemarketers, his debut Bomb the System (2002) was an Independent Spirit Award nominee. His documentary The Upsetter (SXSW 2005) is in the Criterion Collection. An NYU film graduate, he passionately tells diverse human stories.

AX Mina is a futures thinker, creative consultant and coach. Her mission is building a more just, compassionate and sustainable world through better futures in work, technology and society.

A current Senior Civic Media Fellow at the USC Annenberg School for Journalism and Communication and Research Affiliate at the Institute for the Future, Mina has written for publications like the Economist, the Atlantic, Hyperallergic and Nieman Journalism Lab, and has spoken in venues like the Aspen Institute, re:publica, and Harvard Law School. Her creative practice has been exhibited in spaces like the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Museum of the Moving Image and the Brooklyn Museum.

At Harvard University, Mina was a 2016-17 research fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and a 2016 Knight Visiting Fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, where she studied online language barriers and their impact on journalism.

With over a decade of leadership experience in technology, media and the arts, she currently serves on the board of the News Product Alliance and Processing Foundation and helps produce innovative media projects, including as associate producer for the Oscar-nominated documentary Ascension.

Her newest book, the Hanmoji Handbook, is co-authored for MITeen Press about emoji and the Chinese language. She is a certified trauma-informed yin yoga teacher.

Schomer is a media and technology market researcher and industry analyst. She is Media Analyst and Research Editor at Variety Intelligence Platform at Luminate, a B2B industry research subscription service focused on media and entertainment, where she covers the intersection of generative AI in Hollywood. Her research and reporting offers insight into the capabilities, limitations and practical use of the tech in film and TV production and its broader legal, ethical and labor challenges in the industry and the resources emerging to resolve those challenges. Previously, she covered topics and trends in media, digital advertising and technology as a research analyst at eMarketer, Business Insider Intelligence and on the thematic investing research team at Barclays. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in English and film studies.