MiniMax Takes the Stage at Cannes as AI and Art Move Toward Reconciliation

In the spring of 2026, the winds of the film and television industry began to change.

On April 21, the world's first and largest AI film festival, WAIFF (2026), was officially held at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France. Along the azure coastline, a stream of film industry professionals filed in, but gone was the dazzling glamour of the usual star-studded red carpet. This time, the carpet was replaced with a purple one symbolizing technology, and walking this "purple carpet" were AI content creators.

Almost simultaneously, on the other side of the globe, China's film and television industry was undergoing a seismic shift. Stellar Gravity — the leading IP company behind hit series such as Love Between Fairy and Devil and The Starry Love — officially signed a strategic AI content partnership with large language model company MiniMax. Together, they unveiled the Erta Chronicle concept animation powered by MiniMax's technology, whose oriental fantasy aesthetic quickly went viral within the industry.

On one side, endorsement from the world's most prestigious film venue. On the other, the entry of China's top content studios. The standoff between AI and art that had persisted for years is beginning to crack.

The Purple Carpet at Cannes: AI Film Steps from Underground to the Grand Stage

For a long time, the relationship between AI and the art of film and television has been fraught with tension. The 2023 Hollywood writers' and actors' strike pushed the "AI threat narrative" to the forefront of public discourse. At the time, creators' resistance to AI reached its peak, and AI-generated content was widely seen as an affront to artistic dignity.

Yet just over two years later, Cannes — the world's most prestigious shrine to cinema — proactively opened its doors to AI filmmaking. The WAIFF film festival was not merely an event-level innovation; it was a landmark signal. When the power center of the global film industry begins to take AI creation seriously, the years-long "human-machine standoff" has entered a new phase.

Notably, WAIFF did not simply put AI tools on "exhibition." Instead, it placed AI creators and traditional filmmakers on the same stage for dialogue. The purple carpet replacing the red carpet was both a formal distinction and a declaration of intent: AI content creation is staking its claim to legitimacy and artistic recognition.

MiniMax and Stellar Gravity: An Industry Alliance Worth Watching

If Cannes represents an attitudinal shift on the global stage, then the partnership between MiniMax and Stellar Gravity represents a substantive breakthrough in China's AI film and television value chain.

Stellar Gravity is no ordinary production company. As the leading IP studio behind phenomenal hits like Love Between Fairy and Devil and The Starry Love, it has deep expertise in content planning, IP incubation, and fan engagement. MiniMax, meanwhile, is a frontrunner in China's large model race, particularly in multimodal generation, with sustained investment in video generation technology.

The Terra Chronicle concept animation they jointly released has been regarded by the industry as a benchmark experiment. The work centers on an oriental fantasy aesthetic, blending traditional cultural elements with AI generation technology to deliver a visual quality distinctly different from conventional animation production pipelines.

The significance of this partnership lies in the fact that it shatters a long-standing industry bias — the assumption that AI-generated content can only remain at the "tech demo" level and can never truly carry IP content with commercial value and artistic expression. Stellar Gravity's willingness to entrust one of its core IPs to AI technology is itself an endorsement of MiniMax's technological maturity, as well as a substantive exploration of the commercialization pathway for AI-powered film and television content.

From Confrontation to Convergence: Three Shifts in Industry Perception

Looking back over the past three years, the relationship between AI and film art has gone through several distinct phases:

Phase One: Fear and Confrontation. Marked by the 2023 Hollywood strike, the creative community's attitude toward AI was primarily defensive and resistant, with the core demand being "AI must not replace humans."

Phase Two: Experimentation and Divergence. Between 2024 and 2025, some pioneering creators began incorporating AI into their workflows, but mainstream industry attitudes remained conservative. AI film works mostly existed as experimental short films, lacking truly industry-grade applications.

Phase Three: Legitimization and Integration. Starting in 2026, represented by the WAIFF film festival and the MiniMax–Stellar Gravity partnership, AI filmmaking began to gain mainstream industry recognition. AI is no longer viewed by default as the antithesis of art but is being redefined as a new creative tool and medium of expression.

Behind this transformation lies both technological progress and industrial reality. On one hand, large model companies like MiniMax have made significant advances in video generation quality, consistency, and controllability, dramatically improving the "usability" of AI-generated content. On the other hand, the cost pressures and content production bottlenecks facing the film and television industry have compelled more and more professionals to acknowledge AI's value as an efficiency tool.

Controversy Hasn't Disappeared, but Dialogue Has Begun

Of course, the "reconciliation" between AI and art is far from complete. Debates within the industry over copyright ownership, creative ethics, and artistic originality continue. Many traditional filmmakers remain cautious about AI, arguing that technological intervention may dilute the depth and uniqueness of creative work.

But an undeniable fact is that the window for dialogue has been opened. When the Palais des Festivals in Cannes lays out a purple carpet for AI creators, and when leading companies like Stellar Gravity actively embrace AI technology, the industry's foundational consensus is undergoing a subtle yet profound shift — the question is no longer "whether to use AI" but "how to use AI well."

As this cascade of developments suggests, the relationship between AI and art is evolving from a zero-sum game toward a new possibility of symbiosis. The stone has been cast into the lake, and the ripples are only just beginning to spread.

Looking Ahead: What's Next for AI in Film and Television

From an industry perspective, the MiniMax–Stellar Gravity collaboration model could become a reference template for future AI film partnerships — a dual-engine approach where "technology companies provide generative capabilities + content companies provide IP and creative oversight." This division of labor leverages AI's advantages in efficiency and visual presentation while preserving human creators' leadership in narrative and aesthetics.

It is foreseeable that 2026 will become a critical inflection point for AI film and television content. As technological capability, industry willingness, and cultural acceptance gradually converge, AI filmmaking may be approaching its own "iPhone moment."

For Chinese large model companies like MiniMax, being able to resonate in sync with the global AI filmmaking wave under the halo of Cannes is itself a significant moment for international expansion and brand visibility. The key going forward will be whether they can consistently produce benchmark cases with both commercial viability and artistic persuasiveness, truly driving AI filmmaking from "proof of concept" to "scaled production."