International Panel
The International Panel 2026 will take place on the 17th of October, from 18:45 to 20:00.
Ethical Editing in the Age of AI
This year, both the International Panel and the International Film Editors Forum (IFEF) will focus on the same topic but approach it in different ways.
In 2023, Edimotion held its first panel addressing rapid advances in machine learning and their anticipated impact on the film editing profession. The title was somewhat tongue-in-cheek: AI in Its Toddler Phase: Stay Calm, Secure the Sockets, and Keep a Watchful Eye! Since then, the AI technological revolution has continued to move at hypersonic speed, and it has become harder to keep one's humor amidst many troubling developments.
Most of the time, discussions about AI broadly fluctuate between expectations of Boom, Gloom, or Doom. In the film industry they also often dive deep into the potency (or not) of countless new tools and changing work scenarios, while ethical considerations tend to fall through the cracks. Edimotion has chosen to focus squarely on AI & Ethics this year, because we feel there is a collective danger of losing one's bearings amid the speed and ease-of-use of both standard machine learning tools and more advanced generative AI applications.
Our panel guests bring three different perspectives to this topic. Angelika Lepper is a film editor who also has a long academic career in artistic research. She is currently leading a survey on AI use amongst German film editors. Özcan Vardar is the chairman of the umbrella association TEMPO and member of its AI task force. His 2025 master thesis dealt with the „Impact of AI on Film Editing“. And Magda Woods is a data scientist, tech-entrepreneur, and founder of two AI start-ups. Her decade-long work as an AI strategist for media and publishing businesses adds a valuable viewpoint from outside the film bubble to the discussion.
Panel guests:
Angelika Lepper, Germany
Özcan Vardar, Turkey
Magda Woods, Poland
______________________________________
Saturday, 17 October 2026 | Filmforum at the Museum Ludwig
18:45 – 20:00
Moderator: Dietmar Kraus
The panel will be in English.
Tickets (6 € for all visitors)
© Thierry CohenAngelika Lepper
Germany
Angelika Lepper was born and raised in Munich. She is an artistic researcher and film editor, currently associate researcher in Hito Steyerl's Emergent Digital Media class at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. She previously taught in the editing programme at Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf and held a guest professorship in Experimental Television at Bauhaus-University Weimar. She engages montage as method and epistemology and investigates what happens to this mode of thought when machinic systems begin to take over editing decisions. Recent conference contributions include AI and Labour (AdBK Munich, 2024) and CUT/GENERATE: Montage and AI at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (within the framework of The World Through AI, Jeu de Paume Paris, 2025). She currently leads a survey on the ethics and practice of AI use in editing among the members of the Bundesverband Filmschnitt (BFS), Germany's association of film editors.
© Mel McVeighMagda Woods
Poland
Magda Woods is a consultant, entrepreneur, and AI strategist with over a decade of experience at the intersection of data, AI, and publishing.
She founded the company „And The Robots“, advising media and publishing businesses on how to build commercial value from AI, including leading GOV.UK's first generative AI initiative and supporting organisations from the BBC to The Economist.
Before founding „And The Robots“, Magda built and commercialised AI products from the ground up, co-founding two AI startups, leading data science teams at „Future plc“ and The Telegraph, and translating complex technical capabilities into products.
© Alpkan BağlıÖzcan Vardar
Turkey
Özcan Vardar is a film editor, and since 2024 chairman of the umbrella organization „TEMPO – Federation of Film Editors Associations”.
Born 1979 in Istanbul, Vardar studied computer programming at the „Macka Anatolian Technical Highschool” from 1992–96, and Mathematics and Film at the Bogazici University from 1998–2006. He has been editing fiction films and documentaries since 2007. He was selected to „Berlinale Talent Campus” and „Locarno Summer Academy” in 2011. For his work on the cinema feature film Burning Days (Kurak Günler), he and co-editor Eytan İpeker received numerous awards, including the 2022 European Film Award for Best Editing. His latest feature film, Kurtuluş, premiered in the Berlinale competition 2026 and won the Silver Bear – Grand Jury Prize.
Özcan Vardar has taught Film Grammar and Film Editing courses at various universities and led many workshops. He is a founding member of the „Film Editors’ Society of Turkey” (KUDA) and a board member of Mithat Alam Education Foundation, which was established to provide scholarships to film students. Since 2019, he is based in Hamburg.