San Sebastian's 2026 Creative Investors' Conference delivered a record-breaking talking point on day one: the U.S. summer box office hit record highs, and Neon's head of distribution Elissa Federoff called it a genuine recovery.

"I think it's a recovery; it's a phenomenal result," Federoff said at the opening panel, The New U.S. Landscape. "Every year since the pandemic, we have seen growth, and it's been amazing to watch." She acknowledged the obstacles: "COVID happened, strikes happened, theater closures happened, and in that time, there has been a rise of a lot of other channels of entertainment, gaming, social platforms, streaming platforms. We've seen opportunities for new pathways during this point."

For four years, the CIC, co-organized with CAA Media Finance, has insisted on upsides amid the post-COVID, post-peak TV downturn. The optimism now comes with caveats. TV spend sits at 75% of peak TV levels, according to Ampere Analysis. Killer Films' Christine Vachon put the state of U.S. independent production in lapidary terms: it is "basically fucked up."

Social media as engine, not enemy

The rebound runs through social media, once blamed for draining cinema audiences. "People are coming back to the movie theaters but engaging with movies in different ways," said Rob Williams of Sumerian Pictures. Federoff noted that most cinemagoers now discover their movies on social media, and that the audience skewing younger — "Millennial, Gen Z and even younger" — is building genuine fandom.

Sumerian Pictures, launched in June 2025, targets the young music-focused audience its parent company Sumerian Records built, a strategy that gained traction with its Sundance pickup of "Josephine." Adele Romanski of Pastel Pictures said distributors now hunt for "movies to create conversations around." That logic helps explain the buzz around "La Bola Negra," the queer epic that won the often Oscar-predictive TIFF People's Choice Award and pairs pop sensibility with mainstream LGBTQ visibility.

'Obsession' and 'Backrooms' change the conversation

Two YouTube-born U.S. box office sensations, "Obsession" and "Backrooms," dominated conversation even at the Europe's Current Challenges and Opportunities panel. "'Obsession' and 'Backrooms' are two movies that completely changed the way Hollywood is talking about films," said L.A.-based producer Lorenzo de Maio. "Distributors need to bring the movie to the audience, and Curry [Barker] and Kane [Parsons] brought their own audiences."

StudioCanal's Ron Halpern sees the same phenomenon in Europe: "There is an audience that loves movies, a younger audience, too, and that is open to different authentic voices in a way five or 10 years ago we wouldn't have been that confident about. That's a great thing for all of our local or mixed-language productions." On "We Live in Time," starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, Halpern's team knew Pugh would "deliver the TikTok audience" — and she did.

The international Oscar forecast

Rodrigo Teixeira, the producer behind "I'm Still Here," predicted a structural shift in the Academy's top category. "We are [now] seeing at least three-four international films in the best film category," he said. "And in five years from now, I believe international films will make up 60% of the category for best film, because we can talk more. We have freedom of speech, and in the U.S., without freedom of speech, it's difficult to get financed." Teixeira, who broke out producing U.S. independents "Frances Ha" and "The Witch," is now shooting worldwide: in 2025, two films each in Brazil and Romania, and one each in the U.S., Chile, Argentina and Lebanon.

Co-production drives part of this expansion. "There are so many opportunities to co-pro within Europe and so many ways of doing it. The complexity is there, but it's worth navigating it because it's a thriving industry," said De Maio.

Yet international cinema still hurts in key markets. In Brazil, "I'm Still Here" and "The Secret Agent" delivered "exceptional" box office and "The Blue Trail" posted "very good solid results," Teixeira said. "But a lot of other Brazilian films make 10,000 admissions in theaters. And that kills the film." In South Korea, companies look abroad "out of necessity," said Barunson C&C's Heejeon Kim. "The number of films and the revenues, everything's shrinking, financiers are really struggling to invest money."

Equity fills the financing gap

Goodfellas' Vincent Maraval offered one of the conference's sharpest observations: local films' market share has surged across many countries. "Indonesia's cinema market share is now 60%. 10 years ago, it was probably 10%, 12% or 15%. That's a major challenge for us." With pre-sales, streamer spending and broadcaster pre-buys all contracting, producers and sales agents increasingly turn to equity. For Why Not Productions' Pauline Lamy, incoming U.S. equity is "a new thing" that enables larger-scale production: "'Fjord' needed that; 'Emilia Pérez' needed that. A lot of films couldn't work without this mixed system."

Spain's public sector joined the act. The conference opened with the presentation of SETT, a sovereign venture capital fund within the Ministry of Digital Transformation financed by E.U. Next Generation funds. Rather than subsidies, SETT invests up to 49% equity in companies with 51% private participation. Audiovisual director María Coronado said SETT has deployed €216 million across 15 operations spanning the audiovisual value chain, generating €445 million in total investment. Beneficiaries Casa Mundo Cero, Aurora Media and Itaca Films presented their cases at the conference.

Pijama tackles the distribution black hole

"80%, 85% of movies that go to major film festivals in the world do not get distribution, and there's no way to see them," Pablo Larraín told the conference. Even distributed films lose availability: by Cannes 2026, Justine Triet's 2023 Palme d'Or winner "Anatomy of a Fall" could no longer be seen in parts of Africa and Australasia. Larraín and his brother Juan de Dios presented Pijama, a TVOD platform offering global or select-territory access with 80% of revenues going to rights holders. Uploading costs $100 for two years. Pijama has already signed MK2, Alpha Violet and Visit Films; Emir Kusturica's "Black Cat, White Cat" ranks No. 4 and Juliette Binoche's "In-I In Motion" No. 5 in its Top 10. Any producer can upload a film.

AI: tool, not threat

The closing session, A Thinking Towards the Future, wrestled with artificial intelligence. "I think there's paranoia, like the old saying there's nothing to fear but fear itself. AI is a tool. AI is not something that is coming in and making movies," said Ryan Kavanaugh of Acme AI & FX. He cited hard numbers: AI cut below-the-line costs by two thirds and compressed one film's shoot schedule — shot entirely on a gray stage — from 70 to 19 days, while enabling exotic locations. It also allows studios to preview: "you can literally make part or all of a movie in a manner not fit for theatrical release, but enough so a studio can watch it and they can make a decision on green light."

Veteran producer Patrick Wachsberger of 193 drew the line at performance: "When you do a movie, you have a limited budget, whatever the budget is. Can you make this movie bigger in scope using AI? I'm not suggesting at all that you use AI for any of the actors, but if you want to do extension or whatever, something to give scope to the movie, I'm all for it." As the conference made clear, the financing and discovery models are changing faster than the films themselves — and the next five years may decide who owns the best picture category.