On Shaping the Next Chapter of Talent

Woolf+Lapin was founded on a belief: the most powerful stories come from the margins, not the center. From our home base in Montréal, we’ve built a talent boutique that refuses to follow industry convention. We seek out voices that defy genre, challenge markets, and make culture—not just content.

Over the past two decades, Woolf+Lapin has navigated shifting sands—broadcast to streaming, film to immersive, YouTube to AI—by staying grounded in one principle: creative proximity. We stand beside the creators. We are producers, managers, cultural translators. Our goal? To protect the creative spark while amplifying its commercial reach.

We’ve been early partners on projects that have gone viral, or opened up entirely new revenue streams. We’ve worked with tech visionaries and punk rockers. We’ve launched directors. We’ve protected misfits. We’ve seen disruption coming and helped our talent ride the wave, not drown in it.

Now, as AI, immersive media, and global streaming reshape the playing field again, Woolf+Lapin isn’t pivoting. We’re evolving. We’re helping talent build worlds—across formats, across borders. We’re forging alliances from Montréal to Los Angeles, from Cannes to TIFF, with a clear north star: creative integrity.

Une fois de plus.

La relève nous tient profondément à cœur. En témoignent les projets récents que nous accompagnons, comme la réalisation d’Éloïse Lavictoire.

Ca nous permet de suivre les nouveaux sons de Komedza :

« ((WaYeï)) » est un morceau dans lequel je lève le voile sur une douleur sourde qui m’accompagne depuis toujours: la solitude. Je vis avec la peur d’être un poids, de déranger. Bien que je sois bien entouré, je m’isole instinctivement, choisissant d’affronter mes peurs et mes difficultés seul. À mes yeux, personne ne peut réellement mieux me comprendre que moi-même. Cette attitude est nourrie par une méfiance profonde que j’ai envers les autres (les loups sous la lune). Une mentalité que je reconnais comme étant à l’origine de mon isolement du reste du monde. Une mentalité que je commence tout doucement à changer.
Le morceau est maintenant à vous. Prenez le temps de l’écouter et de le lire. Vous avez le droit de l’aimer ou pas, mais soyez sincère envers vous-même.»

At Cannes this year, both Fatih Akin and Hideo Kojima expressed cautious optimism about AI’s role in storytelling. After expressing mutual admiration and talking about their collaborations they expressed their views on AI. It’s not something to fear, but a tool—one that must be understood, integrated, and ultimately shaped to serve narrative rather than replace it. Akin notably remarked: “It is much like Milton’s Paradise Lost … it’s got so many layers.”

It’s a comparison that resonates. Milton’s Satan—rendered with tragic ambition, grandeur, and contradiction—is one of literature’s most complex and morally ambiguous characters. In invoking him, Akin wasn’t sounding an alarm, but pointing to a deeper truth: ethical ambiguity and creative power often come intertwined. That’s the terrain filmmakers must now navigate with AI.

Meanwhile, David Cronenberg, no stranger to provocation, defended AI use during the London Soundtrack Festival in remarks reported by The Hollywood Reporter. He dismissed the controversy surrounding The Brutalist—where AI was reportedly used to enhance Adrien Brody’s Hungarian accent—saying: “We mess with actors’ voices all the time.” He added, “I think it was a campaign against The Brutalist by some other Oscar nominees.”

Director Antoine Fuqua struck a similar tone, also speaking to Movieguide. Reflecting on past technological shifts, he said: “We’re creatures of habit. I remember when I started in videos and commercials, I shot on film. Digital was a thing we all kicked and screamed about. Turns out, it’s fantastic. It’s another paintbrush we can use to do our work. AI’s the same thing. AI doesn’t replace human feelings and human emotions.”

The pattern is clear: genre filmmakers, long at ease with technological disruption, are not merely adapting to AI—they are actively shaping the ethics around it. Not in policy white papers, but in daily creative decisions. Not with blind optimism, but with calibrated risk.

For them, the question is no longer should we use AI—but how do we use it responsibly, and who does it serve?

After a series of interviews and plugging in all of his writings, we were able to generate a version of data scientist Chris Mattman who is the inaugural Chief Data and AI Officer (CDAIO) at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).

Before UCLA, Mattmann was the Division Manager of the Artificial Intelligence, Analytics and Innovative Development Organization at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. He recently finished a nearly 24 year career at JPL where he conceived, realized and delivered the architecture for the next generation of reusable science data processing systems for NASA. He was also behind the leaking of the now mythical Panama Papers.

We have since lost our executive producer, a studio that cannot be named here, but felt it had to be cautious regarding its relationships with unions/guilds in the industry.

As a result its legal department pulled the production.