ECAM FORUM 2026

The image as a construct: a human creation designed to provoke emotion or response, but also as a representation of social structures, assumptions, and values often transmitted subtly, beyond our conscious perception. New layers soon emerged: conflicts and high-profile public events unfolded alongside parallel battles of narratives and interpretations. Simultaneously, images generated by artificial intelligence and deepfakes became increasingly integrated into daily media circulation, normalizing to the point where manipulated material of public figures is consumed with little distinction between the edited and the authentic.

Today, the old adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words" has lost its meaning. Therefore, we want to reflect on the image—not from a pessimistic stance, but from a more humanist one: one that places artistic creation, and film in particular, in a crucial position to provide new realities amidst this oversaturation of images. We want to reflect on what value the creation of new images still retains in a moment of saturation and visual excess, but also on how the creation of new utopias might help us build a better future, one not dominated by hopelessness.