Warsaw Glitch 2026 draws 1,400+ attendees for three days at the crossroads of film, AI and technology
Warsaw, Poland, August 28 to 30, 2026. More than 1,400 attendees, over 120 speakers and approximately 70 panels, conversations, screenings, masterclasses and special events came together across three Warsaw venues for the inaugural edition of Warsaw Glitch. Guests came from across Europe, North America and Asia.
Bringing together film, artificial intelligence, technology, startups, investment, law, advertising, television and new media, Warsaw Glitch turned the Polish capital into an international meeting point for one of the most consequential conversations facing the creative industries today: how generative AI is reshaping entertainment, and where human creativity belongs within that transformation. The event took place from August 28 to 30 at the Warsaw Presidential Hotel, Teatr 6. Piętro at the Palace of Culture and Science, and the Documentary and Feature Film Studios (WFDiF) on Chełmska Street.
Warsaw Glitch was created by Michał “OverJK” Owerczuk, filmmaker, founder and Artistic Director of Warsaw Glitch, and captain of the Polish national team competing in the international GenJam Director’s Cup. From the outset, Warsaw Glitch was designed to move beyond the generative AI bubble. Technology builders shared stages with traditional filmmakers, actors, film and television producers, screenwriters, writers, lawyers, investors, scientists, startup founders and representatives of established production companies. International guests travelled to Warsaw from the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Scandinavia, South Korea and other parts of Europe and the world.
Zanussi opens with a question bigger than AI
The first edition opened with a keynote by Krzysztof Zanussi, one of Poland’s most celebrated filmmakers. Rather than beginning with another conversation about models, applications and technological capabilities, Zanussi addressed the human being in the age of transhumanism. His talk raised broader questions about the boundaries of humanity, the responsibility of the artist, the meaning of technological progress and what happens to culture when machines begin to participate directly in the creative process.
Zanussi remained at the event after the opening and joined further conversations with participants, including a Brainer-powered panel exploring what artificial intelligence means for contemporary filmmakers and how it is changing ideas around authorship, visual expression and artistic responsibility. It set the tone for one of the defining principles of Warsaw Glitch: the future of AI should not be discussed only by the people building the technology, but also by those who have spent decades creating cinema, television and culture.
Among Friday’s speakers were producers Krzysztof Sołek, Radosław Jarecki, Kamil Przełęcki and Cezary Grzesiuk, alongside actors Robert Gulaczyk and Jędrzej Jezierski. Their discussions focused on the practical and ethical boundaries of using artificial intelligence in film: where AI can genuinely support a creator, and where it may result in a loss of control over a work, an actor’s likeness or the rights attached to a performance.
Technology was also confronted with literature and the humanities. Mira Marcinów, Marcin Cecko and Bartłomiej Głowacki discussed the relationship between artificial intelligence, consciousness, emotion and art. Instead of another debate about productivity, the conversation asked whether a system can ever move beyond the boundaries established by its creators, and whether a generative process could one day be considered an independent creative act.
At the same time, CastingAI and Veles presented examples of changes already taking place inside production workflows. CastingAI demonstrated emerging models for working with actors’ digital likenesses, while Artur Paprocki and Veles presented a hybrid approach combining traditional production, human actors and generative post-production.
Who pays for the revolution, and who owns it?
Warsaw Glitch did not avoid the economic consequences of technological transformation. Edi Pyrek, Robert Kroplewski, Robert Kamiński, Aureliusz Górski and Katarzyna Starosławska were among the participants discussing AI’s impact on the economy, employment, regulation, investment and the creation of new companies.
One of the most unconventional formats of the opening day was “How Not to Invest in Poland?”, a debate staged as a head-to-head confrontation between investor and business angel Maciej Zientara and futurist and entrepreneur Edi Pyrek. Their arguments were analysed in real time by an experimental artificial intelligence system acting as an additional judge. Piotr Senkus and Piotr Zientara of WarsawJS also took part in the format.
The technology programme extended into agentic systems, software development and game production. Artur Kurasiński and Max Salamonowicz demonstrated how agentic AI can already be incorporated into a practical game-development workflow.
Legal questions formed another major part of the programme. Mariusz Busiło, Michał Kibil and Artem Petrov, founder of CopySight, explored not only how AI is being used to create content, but also how the same technology can be used to detect infringement and protect intellectual property. Their discussion became a starting point for a wider question facing the creative economy: what should copyright and ownership look like in a world where technological development is moving considerably faster than regulation?
Poland wins the GenJam Director’s Cup
One of the central moments of Warsaw Glitch was the official presentation of Poland’s victory in the Machine Cinema GenJam Director’s Cup, an international generative filmmaking tournament in which national teams competed through consecutive elimination rounds, creating films under severe time constraints. Poland defeated France, Nigeria and the United States before winning the final against Indonesia. A total of 510 films were created during the tournament.
The highest-rated film of the final was “Ursula,” directed by Michał “OverJK” Owerczuk and created by the Polish Eagles team. The film took first place in the final jury ranking and became a symbol of the Polish team’s overall victory. “Ursula” was deliberately conceived as more than a technology demonstration. The film drew directly from Polish literary tradition, combining inspiration from Jan Kochanowski’s “Laments” with Bolesław Leśmian’s poem “Urszula Kochanowska.” At its centre is Kochanowski’s deceased daughter and one of the most recognisable motifs in Polish literature, reinterpreted through a new medium while remaining fundamentally a story about grief, memory and longing.
During Warsaw Glitch, members of the Polish team were officially introduced to the audience and recognised for their championship victory. Representatives of the international Machine Cinema community were also present in Warsaw, including Minh Do, Affan Imran and Meg Button.
Hollywood and Europe come to Warsaw
The international programme was one of the most extensive parts of the inaugural Warsaw Glitch. One of the key conversations around screenwriting in the age of generative AI brought together Justin Trevor Winters, lecturer at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, producer and screenwriter Adrien Bodson, and American-German screenwriter and creator Albert Bozesan. Their discussion asked whether classical storytelling structures can survive a world in which generating alternative versions of a narrative becomes effectively instantaneous.
Animator and VFX creator Oscar Burgos, whose career includes work connected with major Hollywood productions, presented his film “Between the Lines.” The programme also included a screening of “Freedom,” a production inspired by the story of Tadeusz Kościuszko, with James Drake, Thomas R. Carrington and members of the film’s cast and creative team attending the event. Audiences also saw “Ballad of the Schizoid Man” by Adrian Daniel Botnariu.
Europe’s growing AI filmmaking scene had a strong presence in Warsaw. Guests from Scandinavia included Billy Boman, Markus and Tanja Laukkanen, Edmond Yang and Marcus Grip, while France was represented by creators including Sylvain Perret, Marc Horgues, Monsieur Moyen and Caroline Thireau.
The first day concluded with the Startup Battle, an open showcase featuring more than 12 startups from Poland, Europe and the United States presenting their products to investors and the wider Warsaw Glitch audience.
Later that evening, the second floor of the Warsaw Presidential Hotel transformed from a conference venue into a networking space. The hotel terrace brought together artists, investors, founders, actors and international guests in a more informal setting. The evening’s music programme included Themo Melikidze, the Georgian-American actor known, among other roles, for appearing alongside Mark Wahlberg in “Patriots Day.”
Saturday: from morning TV to Hollywood VFX
On Saturday, Warsaw Glitch moved its main stage to Teatr 6. Piętro inside Warsaw’s Palace of Culture and Science, with the programme shifting further towards the realities of film, television, advertising, VFX and media production. The day opened with a television production masterclass featuring Meggie Miao and Jan Kępiński. Miao shared experiences from the American television market and her work on CBS News Sunday Morning, for which she received two Daytime Emmy Awards, while Kępiński brought the perspective of a veteran Polish television producer and director.
Other sessions featured Oscar Burgos, Matt Tokarz of Platige Image, Ben Chimoy, Peter Chulmin Krell and Stuart Cripps. Cripps, an experienced VFX specialist whose credits include work connected to major Hollywood productions, delivered a masterclass on the ways artificial intelligence is beginning to integrate into established visual-effects workflows. His professional portfolio includes productions from the “Spider-Man” and “Transformers” franchises, as well as “The Revenant” and “The Day After Tomorrow.”
On the main stage, Michał “OverJK” Owerczuk hosted conversations bringing together people from very different corners of the entertainment business. Guests included Joanna Uniwersal, previously associated with strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi and Ogilvy; Margarita Grubina of Respeecher; Artem Petrov; model Pola Lachnik; Robert Mościcki of ATM Studio; talent agent Philippe Buka; American creator Brogan Wassell; and South Korean director Junho Her, who moved into generative AI filmmaking after two decades in the fashion industry.
Many of these conversations moved beyond the increasingly familiar question of whether AI will “take people’s jobs.” Instead, they addressed more immediate commercial and legal issues: Who owns an actor’s likeness? How should a human voice be licensed? Who owns material generated by a model? And where exactly is the boundary between using new technology and violating the rights of the people whose work made that technology possible?
The international production perspective was also represented by Affan Imran, Etienne Dejong, Martin Kunert, Eric Manes and Adrien Bodson, who discussed how production models are changing and how major studios and independent producers are navigating an entirely new creative ecosystem. The acting community was represented by Izabela Połeć, Maria Sadowska, Andrzej Nejman and Mariusz Połeć, whose discussion focused on how performers can respond to digital likenesses and algorithmically reproduced performances.
Another keynote came from Adi Sideman, an entrepreneur who has spent more than two decades building online platforms and products and is currently behind Popcorn.co and Revel. Sideman presented his vision of the next era of internet media, one in which the user becomes not only the audience, but also the producer of personalised content.
The workshop programme concluded with Billy Boman, who presented a case study on the production of a high-budget advertising campaign using generative artificial intelligence. Interviews and conversations with selected creators, founders and industry representatives were also conducted by Filip Konopczyński.
Red carpet and awards gala
On Saturday evening, Teatr 6. Piętro transformed from a conference stage into the setting for the Warsaw Glitch gala. Actors, performing artists, digital creators, models, influencers, producers, startup founders, company executives and generative filmmakers walked the red carpet.
The evening opened with a presentation of the Polish national team’s winning production accompanied by live music. International guests, event partners and members of the creative team behind “Freedom” were introduced on stage, alongside the Polish team that had won the GenJam Director’s Cup only weeks earlier.
It became one of the moments that most clearly represented the idea behind Warsaw Glitch. In one theatre, established figures from traditional film and television sat alongside technologists and practitioners of a generative medium that, only a few years ago, barely existed as a distinct field of production.
Following the official programme, the event continued with another networking gathering and afterparty, with Themo Melikidze returning to perform alongside invited musicians and DJs.
Sunday: back to the films
After two intensive days, the final chapter of Warsaw Glitch took on a more intimate format. Participants gathered at the Documentary and Feature Film Studios (WFDiF), a venue directly connected to the history of Polish cinema. Instead of another sequence of large conference panels, the focus returned to the films themselves.
Audiences watched works nominated for the Warsaw Glitch Awards, alongside films created by members of the Polish team during the successive stages of the GenJam Director’s Cup. Filmmakers were able to introduce their projects in person, discuss their creative and technological decisions, explain their workflows and answer questions directly from the audience.
It was a deliberate way to close the event. After three days of conversations about law, technology, money, ethics and the future of the market, Warsaw Glitch returned to the fundamental reason the event was created in the first place: films, and the people who make them.
Sunday also brought the conclusion of Suite Dreams, a special international GenJam Video Hackathon organised with the support of the Warsaw Presidential Hotel. More than 250 creators from around the world competed by producing films based on a common brief. The winning filmmaker received a stay in the two-level Presidential Suite at the Warsaw Presidential Hotel, located on the building’s highest floors and overlooking central Warsaw.
A first edition that connected worlds
Warsaw Glitch was created at a moment when the debate around artificial intelligence is often reduced to two extremes: unconditional enthusiasm for technological progress or the belief that it should be stopped altogether. The first edition attempted to create a space between those positions.
For three days, the same stages hosted people building models and startups, creators working with generative AI every day, traditional filmmakers, producers, actors fighting for control over their image and performance rights, lawyers interpreting rapidly evolving regulations, investors trying to identify the next major market, and artists asking a much simpler, and perhaps more important, question: What does any of this allow us to create that is actually better?
With more than 1,400 attendees, over 120 speakers, around 70 programme events, three venues and guests representing multiple countries, Warsaw became one of the places where the future of film, artificial intelligence and entertainment was being debated most intensely during the final weekend of August.
The inaugural Warsaw Glitch also demonstrated that the distinction between the “AI industry” and the “traditional creative industries” is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. They are becoming different parts of the same market. And it is precisely at that intersection that Warsaw Glitch intends to build its future editions.
