Manifesto

Devil’s Night Film Festival exists at the edges of cinema.

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Every work presented by Devil's Night Film Festival begins with a human decision.

We are artists, filmmakers, musicians, designers, and curators. We do not surrender authorship to technology—we exercise it through judgment, experience, taste, and responsibility. Every image, every film, every performance, and every installation is selected because a human being believed it belonged here.

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Artificial intelligence is one of many creative tools available to contemporary artists. Like cameras, synthesizers, editing software, or digital effects before it, its value is determined not by its existence, but by the imagination, ethics, and discernment of the people who use it.

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This manifesto is not a declaration of faith in artificial intelligence.

It is a declaration of faith in human creativity.

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We celebrate horror, experimental, avant-garde, arthouse, underground, and emerging forms of moving-image culture. We do not believe cinema is defined by a particular camera, film stock, software, production method, or technology and we reject the idea that any generation gets to permanently decide where the boundaries of the medium must remain.

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Generative AI is part of that evolving landscape.

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We welcome AI-generated, AI-assisted, hybrid, analog, digital, and traditionally produced work. The medium does not determine the merit. The work does.

But AI itself is not the achievement.

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We are not interested in endless spectacle, derivative aesthetics, or technically impressive imagery without intention or point of view. We seek authorship: artists who direct, transform, challenge, experiment, and leave an unmistakably human presence in the work.

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We expect transparency around substantial generative AI use and responsible treatment of identity, likeness, authorship, and source material. Experimentation does not excuse exploitation.

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We will not reject a film because AI was used.

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We will not select a film because AI was used.

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We will select work because it moves us, disturbs us, challenges us, or shows us something we have not seen before.

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Devil’s Night was not created to defend the boundaries of cinema.

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It was created to haunt them.