France's film board will fund only works with at least one human author

The Journal officiel (France's official gazette) of October 31, 2026 contains a text with an unappealing title: resolution No. 2026/CA/28 of the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC), France's national film and animated image center. Yet it touches on a question that is stirring film, animation and video games: the place of artificial intelligence in creation. Adopted on October 14 by the CNC's board of directors, it amends the general regulations governing its financial aid. Its title announces "a framework for the use of artificial intelligence."

The principle fits in one sentence: no human author, no public money. Yet the text never uses the word "ban."

What the text requires of producers

A new article 122-8-1 of the regulations sets several conditions:

• Screenplay. Aid for the drafting, development, preparation or production of a film, an audiovisual work or a video game is granted only if the recipient shows that at least one author wrote or rewrote the screenplay and the "bible" (the reference document for a series or a universe).
• Animation. At least one graphic author is also required.
• Music. Aid tied to original music requires that at least one author composed it.
• Dubbing, voice-over, audio description, subtitling. Only the pay of the authors of the texts or subtitles and of performers counts as eligible expenses, along with the technical costs tied to their work: recording, mixing, synchronization, overlay.

In practice, a synthetic voice or machine-generated subtitles will not count among the expenses the CNC supports. The text does not forbid a studio from using AI: it reserves public money for human work. The new conditions apply to aid applications filed after the resolution takes effect.

Keeping the works submitted to juries away from AI

The second part concerns those who review the applications. Article 132-6, as amended, bars members of CNC committees from uploading the artistic elements of a submission that are protected by intellectual property into AI tools. A screenplay submitted for funding therefore cannot be pasted into a chatbot to get a summary or an opinion.

The stakes are concrete: depending on the tools and their settings, a text entrusted to an online AI service may be stored or used to train future models. For an unreleased screenplay, the risk of a leak is far from abstract.

What businesses can take from it

Even outside film, the second part speaks to every IT manager. The CNC does what many organizations have not yet done: it states in black and white which data must never enter an AI tool. A simple rule, tied to a specific category of documents, is easier to follow than a general policy.

Several unknowns remain. How will the CNC check that an author was truly involved, and to what extent? Is a human rewrite of a first draft produced by an AI enough? The text does not say. The first applications filed under these rules will show how they work in practice.