Impact Month 2025: exploring emotions at the heart of audiovisual creation

Published 09.24.2025
type School
campus Bordeaux

A year after inaugurating their LAB and launching the first edition of Impact Month on the theme of artificial intelligence, the Creative Schools (ESMA, ETPA, CinéCréatis, Pivaut and IFFDEC) are opening a new page of reflection. For its 2nd edition, this interdisciplinary event explores the influence of cinema and the media on the emotions of a generation.

From AI to emotions: continuity and evolution

For the 2nd year running, the Creative Schools are organising Impact Month, an interdisciplinary event designed as a space for experimentation and collective reflection. The aim remains unchanged: to question the major changes and issues at work in the world of audiovisual creation, design, cinema, animation and the media. Bringing together researchers, professionals and students, this year’s event focuses on what drives stories and their reception: emotions.

The 1ʳᵉ edition, organised in 2024, marked a turning point for the Creative Schools with the creation of the LAB. This laboratory, whose mission is to explore the links between technology, creativity and pedagogy, had inaugurated its work around the theme “AI in our hands: issues and practices in the creative and Entertainment sector”. The series brought together researchers in the human sciences, engineers, artists and lawyers to discuss the uses of artificial intelligence, without sidestepping questions of ethics, intellectual property and collaborative creation. This basis for reflection now serves as a springboard for this 2025 edition, paving the way for new explorations.

An interdisciplinary programme, voices united in Bordeaux

On 26 September 2025, a day of feedback and meetings will bring this Impact Month to a close, while extending the collective reflection. Open to all by registration, it will feature presentations, lectures and cross-disciplinary discussions.

To kick off the discussions, there will be a quick presentation of the LAB’s projects and research and those of its partners from 10:00 to 10:45 a.m. This will be an opportunity to highlight CASH, a program of animated short films designed to raise awareness about harassment, led by Nathalie Blanc (Professor at the University of Montpellier 3) and Sandra Mellot (Director of the LAB des Ecoles Créatives). This will be followed by a presentation of the work of Xavier Aliot, a teacher at the Écoles Créatives, based on his thesis on the role of intimacy in the creative process. Finally, Lucas Khenissi (EM Lyon) will present the conclusions of his Grandes Écoles Master’s thesis on the strategy and perception of French cinema abroad.

At 10:45 a.m., there will be a conference led by director and researcher Marie-Laure Cazin (TALM, École supérieure d’art et de design), who will present her experimental interactive cinema device, in which the film varies between several possible versions depending on the emotions felt by the viewer. Two screenings, at 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., will allow participants to appreciate the experience in light of the concepts discussed during the conference.

The day will conclude with a discussion between Aurélie Blot Jodry and Allan Deneuville, both researchers at the MICA laboratory (Bordeaux Montaigne University). From 3:45 p.m. to 4:45 p.m., they will analyze how cultural and digital productions shape our sensibilities and influence the construction of our social relationships, whether through television series, cinema, or social media use.

Exploring the creative future

Through this second edition of Impact Month, the Creative Schools are confirming their initial ambition: to offer their students, teachers, and partners a space for experimentation and debate on contemporary changes in the creative industries. In 2024, the Creative Schools paved the way with the question of AI and its uses in creation. In 2025, they are continuing on this path by questioning the power of emotions and their role in fiction and the collective imagination. These initiatives reflect a shared conviction: to anticipate changes in creation in order to enable the artists and professionals of tomorrow to innovate while responding to societal, ethical, and cultural challenges.

An event not to be missed!