Eurocine Symposium 2026 Preview – AI Mini Summit, ACES Update, and 50+ Sessions Land in Budapest This Week
Ahead of its Friday opening at the Hungexpo Exhibition Centre in Budapest, the Eurocine Symposium 2026 has unveiled a two-day program with more than 50 sessions spanning AI, color science, lighting, virtual production, and on-set wellbeing. Headline events include an AI mini summit moderated by Henning Rädlein, an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences session titled “Launches ACES”, technical deep dives from Charles Poynton PhD and David Stump ASC, and case studies on The Brutalist and KALEVALA.
Eurocine, formerly Euro Cine Expo, runs on Friday and Saturday this week, marking the show’s fifth edition and its first in Budapest after relocating from Munich. CineD is one an official media partner of the event, and entry is free with pre-registration via the official Eurocine website. Friday hours are 10:00 to 18:00, Saturday 10:00 to 17:00. The symposium runs in parallel with the trade-show floor across multiple rooms (F1 through F8, plus the plenary hall and workshop spaces G7/G8), with sessions delivered in close cooperation with the IMAGO Technical Committee, the Hungarian Cinematographers Association (HCA), and partners including ARRI Rental, Nanlux, FilmLight, Aputure, Hollyland, Schneider-Kreuznach, Leitz, Canon, and the National Film Institute Hungary (NFI).
Hungexpo in Budapest is the new venue for EuroCine from this year onwards. Image credit: Hungexpo
AI takes center stage on Friday afternoon
The most ambitious technical session of the weekend is the AI Mini Summit titled “Checking in on AI in 2026 – what can it do for us?”, running from 14:30 to 17:00 in room F1. Henning Rädlein, who spent over two decades working at ARRI, moderates a panel that includes FilmLight image engineer Daniele Siragusano (ITC), Kommer Kleijn SBC ITC, senior colorist Christian Wieberg-Nielsen FNF (Storyline), David Stump ASC BVK AIP ITC, Dr. Sándor Takó, and cinematographer Roberto Schaefer ASC AIC ITC joining online. Several of these names will be familiar to anyone who followed our coverage of the IMAGO Oslo Digital Cinema Conference in November, where AI was also a primary focus.
Beyond the mini summit, AI surfaces across the program in narrower, application-specific contexts. Ferenc Koscsó presents “Do we need cameras in the AI age?”, focusing on AI and automation in Canon Cinema and PTZ workflows. A separate Saturday morning panel asks “How can Cinematographers survive in the era of AI?” with Nic Sadler, Dr. Cristina Busch, and Anna McKean. The breadth of programming reflects how AI has moved from a single agenda item into multiple corners of the production pipeline, from on-set capture to post.
Color science gets the IMAGO Technical Committee treatment
For working colorists and cinematographers who care about the math behind their images, Eurocine 2026 is unusually deep on color science. Charles Poynton PhD opens Friday morning at 10:30 in room F1 with a session on gamma and log coding for D-cinema, then returns at 16:15 in room F2 to break down noise performance of modern cinema cameras. Poynton’s quantitative, marketing-skeptical approach is the kind of analysis that working professionals rely on when evaluating sensors against vendor claims.
Charles Poynton PhD. Image credit: private
Saturday’s color-grading programming is equally substantial. Daniele Siragusano presents “Beyond LUTs: Architecting Robust Looks with Chromogen” in room F2 from 12:00 to 13:00, walking through FilmLight’s Chromogen toolset and how it differs from conventional LUT-based workflows. Henning Rädlein moderates a 15:30 session titled “Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Launches ACES”, with Steve Tobenkin joining online and Christian Wieberg-Nielsen FNF on the panel. The session title is somewhat ambiguous given that ACES has existed in production-ready form since 2014; the most likely focus is the rollout of ACES 2.0 (released at NAB 2025) and the framework’s August 2025 transition into the Academy Software Foundation. For readers who want a primer on the framework before they attend, our long-running explainer on the ACES workflow remains a solid starting point.
David Stump ASC BVK AIP ITC delivers a metadata update at 13:30 Friday in room F2 covering OpenTrackIO, OpenLensIO, CamDKit (described in the program as “The Rosetta Stone”), and the Common LUT Format (CLF). For productions wrestling with virtual production handoffs and on-set data continuity, this is one of the more practically useful sessions on the schedule.
Cinematography case studies and craft sessions
Three case-study sessions stand out for anyone interested in how recent productions actually got made. HCA hosts a grading case study on Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist on Saturday at 10:30 in room F8, moderated by Péter Lehr Juhász with colorist Máté Ternyik. Rauno Ronkainen FSC ITC presents a deep dive on KALEVALA, the recent feature-film adaptation of Finland’s national epic directed by Antti J. Jokinen, across both days, running 12:00 to 15:30 Friday in rooms F4 and F5, then again Saturday 13:15 to 14:45 in room F2. London-based cinematographer Rick Joaquim SASC presents “Bad Influencer: Crafting Visuals Under Constraints” on Friday at 13:30 in room F8, breaking down a Netflix series that reached the global Top 5 and examining how the look was built within real production limitations using tools like Sidus Link Pro and Sidus One.
Rick Joaquim SASC presents “Bad Influencer: Crafting Visuals Under Constraints” at Eurocine in Budapest. Image credit: private
Tim Kang, ASC associate member, takes a more hands-on approach with two sessions: a live demo on Friday afternoon titled “Ground Your Vision: Use a Visual Ground to Guide Color Decisions”, and a longer 90-minute “Mastering Light & Colour” workshop with Aputure on Friday evening. Saturday afternoon, Xiangna (Nana) Zheng joins David Stump ASC for a 90-minute session on succeeding as a woman cinematographer in China. Per Eurocine’s speaker materials, her work spans high-intensity action, wildlife, and extreme-location filming, including large-scale stunt work in the Gobi Desert and complex drone-based cinematography across both outdoor and controlled stage environments. Leitz Cine hosts a “Hot Takes DoP Interview” Saturday afternoon with Markus Forderer, Andac Karabeyoglu, Flora Fecske, and Vika Safrigina.
Lighting, virtual production, and wireless workflows
Bill Bennett ASC anchors Friday morning’s lighting programming with a three-hour session on automotive lighting, presented in association with Nanlux and ARRI Rental. Henrik Moseid (Softlight) and gaffer Rasto Gore tackle “How to Build a Real Flame” Saturday morning. Sarah Thomas Moffat presents “Virtual Production for Storytellers”, focusing on integrating VP workflows into established filmmaking practice rather than treating them as a separate discipline.
Munich-based cinematographer Micky Graeter (BVK), recently off his first feature Der verlorene Mann, presents a Hollyland-backed session on wireless communication for small-crew and solo-shooter workflows. On Saturday afternoon, Henning Rädlein moderates an “Expert Talk: The Art of Using Filters” with Schneider-Kreuznach Cine product manager Claudia Baier, János Vecsernyés HCA, Philippe Ros AFC, and Aleksey Berkovic.
The Eurocine show floor when it still took part in Munich. Image credit: Eurocine
Wellbeing, sustainability, and the Hungarian industry
Eurocine 2026 dedicates significant program time to two topics that have moved firmly into mainstream industry conversation: on-set wellbeing and sustainable production. Producer and SPARKS Kft. CEO Judit Romwalter, who launched a “Wellbeing on Set” initiative in 2025 during production of Stamped, appears across multiple panels. Sarah McCaffrey of Solas Mind, whose clients include the productions of Adolescence and Baby Reindeer, joins Friday’s “Perspectives on Wellbeing” panel.
Birgit Heidsiek of Green Film Shooting moderates Saturday sessions on eco-friendly energy supply and on procurement and supply chains, with two further Green Film Shooting sessions covering “Going Green without Greenwashing” and “Restore, Redesign, Reuse.” NFI hosts a closing session on green filming in Hungary featuring Romwalter again. The Friday morning plenary, presented by Alinda Veiszer, launches the Hungarian Film Industry “White Paper”, a unified policy document addressed to Hungary’s new cultural leadership by leading professional associations. A series of shorter Saturday sessions covers cash rebates and co-production programs across Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Italy, and South America, all moderated by Gergő Borbás.
Practical details and how to attend
Eurocine Symposium 2026 takes place at the Hungexpo Exhibition Centre in Budapest, with the trade-show floor running alongside the symposium across both days. Pre-registration is free via the official Eurocine website, where the full schedule details room assignments and timings for all 50-plus sessions. Saturday includes a special screening of Dorka Vermes’ debut feature Árni in room F4, sponsored by Nanlux and moderated by HCA members.
The Hungarian Cinematographers Association (HCA) brings a strong domestic contingent, and the IMAGO Technical Committee delivers a substantial run of color-science and metadata programming across the two days. Educators and emerging cinematographers may also want to check our continuously updated MZed library of cinematography and color-grading courses, which covers many of the same fundamentals discussed across the symposium program.
Will you be going to Budapest this Friday or Saturday? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!
