Two AI Film Tools Built for Independent Filmmakers Launch at Cannes

Chris Bird, former Managing Director of Prime Video UK, launched two AI companies at the Cannes Marché du Film this week: Hawkshead AI and CineMe AI. Both are designed to bring capabilities that have been exclusive to major studio productions within reach of independent filmmakers.

Hawkshead AI: Script to Audience Forecast

Hawkshead AI is a predictive analytics platform for the film industry. It uses AI and proprietary databases to forecast how a project will perform with audiences, working from a script or synopsis before production begins.

The platform provides guidance on adjusting scripts, casting choices, and creative direction based on what the data shows. The goal is to give independent producers and development teams access to the kind of audience intelligence that studio greenlight committees have long used internally.

CineMe AI: Visual Development Outside the Studio System

CineMe AI is a visual development tool for filmmakers, which Bird founded alongside director Dan Hartley. Hartley previously directed "The Boy Who Lived". The company was built to address a specific gap: outside major studio systems, visual development tools are either prohibitively expensive or simply absent.

The platform targets both established filmmakers looking to move faster in development and newer creators working without studio backing.

The CineMe Future Fund

CineMe AI has allocated 5% of the company to a charitable trust called the CineMe Future Fund. The fund's purpose is to provide enterprise grade AI tools to workers in the screen based creative industries who would not otherwise have access to them.

The structure is unusual among AI film startups, most of which are organized as purely commercial ventures. Bird is positioning CineMe as a company that treats access as part of its founding mandate.

Launching at Cannes

Both companies are debuting during the Marché du Film, which runs May 12 to 20 alongside the 79th Cannes Film Festival. The Marché has built AI into the center of its 2026 commercial program, with an AI for Talent Summit for senior industry executives and the first Creator Economy Summit in its history.

Bird's launches arrive as VC funding for AI video generation companies reached $3.08 billion in 2025, nearly double the prior year. What separates Hawkshead and CineMe from the larger funded players is their explicit orientation toward independent creators, rather than studio workflows.

Filmmakers can access generation and image-to-video tools through AI FILMS Studio, independent of the studio system.

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Sources

Deadline | Variety | The Hollywood Reporter | Screen Daily