2026’S POWER LIST: TOP 50 WOMEN AI FILMMAKERS

This Women’s History month, we’re celebrating the visionary women shaping the future of AI filmmaking. Leonardo.Ai’s TASTE curator Jessie Hughes shares this year’s Power List: 50 exceptional creators pushing the boundaries of storytelling across generative film, animation, and hybrid practices. These are the global filmmakers you need to keep your eye on.

Alex Naghavi is an Australian creative director and filmmaker known for her distinctive visual taste. She was named a Top 50 Women AI Artist, a Runway Gen:48 winner, and one of ten global artists selected for Google’s inaugural Flow Sessions residency. Her AI films Railbound, Gentle, and Feast have received multiple international awards, including Best Film and Best Director, with Gentle recognized by filmmaker George Miller at the OMNI Awards.

Amelie Haeck is a Montreal-based motion designer at Apple whose work blends graphic design, animation, and emerging AI-driven image making. Working at the intersection of motion systems and generative tools, her practice explores how artificial intelligence can expand visual storytelling across digital and cinematic media.

Anne Horel is a French artist and filmmaker working at the crossroads of cinema, digital collage, and artificial intelligence. Through hybrid moving images and speculative storytelling, she explores contemporary mythologies and algorithmic perception, earning recognition including the Best Use of AI Award at the Artefact AI Film Festival.

Beatrice Mai is an art director whose work spans fashion, media, and experimental AI filmmaking. Using AI-generated assets and stop-motion animation techniques, her films explore the subtle tensions of human relationships. Her portfolio includes collaborations with major brands such as Hypebeast x Amazon, Kangol, and W Magazine.

Claire Shin is a New York–based designer and art director currently at Google, whose work explores new mythologies through image-making across still and moving media. Her practice spans graphics, pattern, materiality, scale, and sound, creating visual worlds that blend design, storytelling, and cultural imagination.

Afro Futcha (Diane Laidlaw) is a British AI artist, music producer, DJ, and filmmaker whose work fuses Black culture across the diaspora with bold, cinematic storytelling. Known for projects like Give It to Me, Warm Coat, and The Last, her distinctive style blends heritage and futurism, earning recognition at leading AI film competitions including Project Odyssey, Escape.AI, and the Texas AI Film Festival.

Dorothy Pang is a visual artist and filmmaker whose multidisciplinary background spans product design and software. Working at the intersection of AI and traditional filmmaking, she creates imaginative narratives that explore escapism, perspective, and the evolving possibilities of storytelling.

Elena Savlokhova is an AI filmmaker and creative producer based in London, working at the intersection of generative media and cinematic storytelling. Her practice focuses on developing narrative-driven projects that combine creative direction with emerging AI production workflows.

Eliza McNitt is a writer and director whose work explores the intersection of science, storytelling, and immersive technology. An Emmy® Awards Finalist and Venice Film Festival VR Grand Prize winner, her films and VR experiences—featured at Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, and Cannes NEXT—invite audiences to experience the cosmos through cinematic and experiential storytelling.

Ellen Xu is a product leader and creative technologist exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence, storytelling, and multimedia creation. Xu experiments with generative media, producing music videos using cutting-edge AI models and collaborating with artists exploring new forms of AI-driven storytelling.

Ethereal Moon is an AI art collective founded by artists Ethereal Gwirl in New York and Melody in Nice, France. Combining backgrounds in generative media, storytelling, and visual experimentation, the duo creates surreal AI-driven imagery that blends everyday life with dreamlike narratives. Their work explores memory, emotion, and the uncanny through a distinctive style where nostalgia and disturbance coexist in cinematic digital worlds.

Eve Duhamel is a Montréal-based artist, and half of the duo Vallée Duhamel, working across video, installation, and spatial design. Her work reimagines everyday objects and situations through surreal visual worlds, transforming the mundane into unexpected experiences that challenge perception and spark new creative connections.

Faith Cho is a writer and director whose work explores storytelling at the intersection of entertainment and emerging technology. After teaching in Korea as a Fulbright scholar and working with innovation at United Talent Agency, she focuses on elevating the unfamiliar and overlooked through thoughtful, visually driven narratives.

Francesca Fini is an interdisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, and performer whose work explores the intersection of cinema, performance, and artificial intelligence. Presented at major international festivals and institutions—from the Japan Media Arts Festival to the Guggenheim Bilbao—her practice builds surreal, post-human mythologies that examine identity, technology, and the evolving relationship between body and machine.

Gisele Tong is a filmmaker and lecturer at the School of Animation and Digital Media Arts at the Communication University of China. A USC MFA graduate, her award-winning short film Spring Flower earned the DGA Women’s Unit Award and a Gold Medal at the Student Academy Awards, marking her as the first Chinese filmmaker to receive the honor.

Jinyoung Kim is an AI designer, researcher, and creative director exploring the intersection of design and artificial intelligence. As Creative Director of Collective Turn and an adjunct professor and doctoral researcher at Kookmin University, her work bridges academic research with real-world creative practice. Through her projects and public teaching, she examines how AI design tools can expand creative workflows and the future of design.

Julie Wieland is an art director and visual artist whose work sits at the crossroads of art, technology, and storytelling, blending traditional design with generative AI tools. Known for her dreamlike, cinematic visuals, she explores post-photography and AI-driven filmmaking, with work featured by Netflix and in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Junie Lau is a multidisciplinary director and production designer working between London and Shanghai, known for avant-garde visual narratives that blend cinema, fashion, and emerging technologies. Her AI-driven films and music videos—screened at Tribeca and exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts—explore themes of digital identity and contemporary culture while pushing the boundaries of cinematic storytelling.

Joyce Ng is a digital artist whose work explores how machines interpret everyday human behavior. Working under the name alsoguppyme, she uses generative AI to transform ordinary moments—like commuters in transit—into surreal reflections on perception, technology, and the subtle gaps between human experience and machine vision.

Karin Fyhrie is a designer and creative director working at the intersection of technology, storytelling, and speculative design. She is the founder and Chief Creative Officer of Sovereign Objects, a studio focused on helping ambitious companies shape the future through design and emerging technologies. Previously, she led creative teams at influential design-driven organizations including IDEO, Collins, and Google.

Katie Luo is a multimedia artist and filmmaker whose work explores the intimacies between humans and technology. Through new media and experimental storytelling, she examines surveillance, relationships, and the evolving nature of connection in increasingly mediated environments.

Keenan MacWilliam is a filmmaker, writer, and artist whose work moves fluidly between fashion, music, and experimental moving image. Known for a playful and spontaneous visual style, her films explore the human condition through imagery that feels both intimate and universal. MacWilliam has directed projects for global brands including Apple, Nike, Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, and The New York Times.

Kelly is a generative filmmaker and visual artist creating cinematic AI short films that blend animation, music, and surreal storytelling. Using AI-generated imagery, keyframe animation, and experimental motion workflows, her work explores dreamlike characters, visual poetry, and emotionally driven narratives. Through a practice she describes as visual electronica, Kelly combines evolving visuals to original soundscapes.

Khyati Trehan is an Indian graphic designer and visual artist based in Brooklyn whose work blends experimental technology with visual storytelling. Currently at Google Creative Lab, she develops creative tools and visual systems while maintaining a personal art practice, collaborating with clients including The New York Times, Apple, WIRED, Vogue, and The New Yorker.

Kim Woonha is a filmmaker and visual artist whose work explores existential themes through poetic moving image and experimental storytelling. Her films examine moments of rupture—crash, separation, and transformation—treating the act of “falling” not as an ending but as a passage into new forms of meaning. Through projects such as Noise Rhapsody (2022) and Mold (2025), she creates contemplative cinematic works that explore trauma, loss, and the fragile light that emerges through fracture.

Kristyna Archer is an award-winning director known for her hyperreal, visually striking films that blend surrealism, irony, and vibrant stylized worlds. Working across film, photography, and stop-motion, her work spans fashion and commercial storytelling, earning recognition from festivals including the London Fashion Film Festival and the Berlin Commercial Awards.

Leah Bian is a digital artist and designer whose practice spans 3D art, generative AI, animation, UI/UX design, and immersive VR/AR experiences. Through experimental world-building and speculative storytelling, her work explores symbiotic relationships between humans, technology, and future ecologies. Bian is an alumna of the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Leilanni Todd is a New York–based creative director, artist, and storyteller whose work spans fashion, film, advertising, and emerging technology. Blending cinematic world-building with speculative storytelling, she is the creator of Floam World and has collaborated with brands including Apple, Nike, and The New York Times, with work recognized by Tribeca and The One Show’s Creative AI Pioneer Gold Pencil.

ID Grafix is the creative practice of Swiss designer and AI artist Lisa Brunner, whose work blends graphic design, motion, and AI-generated imagery. Combining a background in fine arts with emerging tools like Stable Diffusion and ComfyUI, she explores new possibilities for visual storytelling and digital design.

Lottevont is an art director working with generative AI to create surreal cinematic imagery and experimental digital worlds. Through her AI studio practice, she develops visual narratives that merge speculative design, motion, and generative aesthetics. Her work has been recognized through initiatives such as the Google Gemini Art Remix and exhibited internationally, including installations at Kaohsiung International Airport.

Lynn Tsai is a motion designer and animation director with over a decade of experience in advertising and digital storytelling. Through dynamic animation and visual design, she crafts compelling visual narratives that transform ideas into striking, engaging motion work.

Melanie Nox is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker blending hand-drawn illustration, traditional filmmaking, and emerging AI tools. Moving fluidly between sketchbooks, cameras, and experimental digital processes, her work creates a surreal and intimate visual language across film, animation, and visual art. Through this hybrid approach, she explores new ways of merging analog craft with generative technologies.

Melita Radocaj is a Munich-based AI creative specialist and visual storyteller with over 20 years of experience in advertising. Through AI imagery and film, she explores new possibilities in digital storytelling, pushing the boundaries of how visual narratives are created and experienced.

Native is a multidisciplinary artist working across photography, collage, painting, video, and AI-generated synthography. Blending traditional artistic techniques with emerging technologies, her work explores memory, spirituality, and the diversity of human experience through surreal and introspective visual worlds. Through her studio, L’Officine de Native, she creates experimental AI artworks that merge human sensibility with generative technology.

Paige Piskin is a multidisciplinary creative director who blends 3D, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence to create immersive digital experiences. Her work focuses on character-driven worlds and viral storytelling, crafting engaging campaigns and visual content for global brands and audiences.

Paola Rocchetti is an award-winning creative director, art director, and motion designer known for integrating AI-driven tools into video production and design workflows. Her work spans branding, music, cinema, and live events, creating visually striking content that blends traditional craft with emerging technology.

Hyacinth is a filmmaker, AI artist, and creative director working at the forefront of experimental film and AIGC-driven visual storytelling. She is Head of Video Products at Morph Studio and a signed director with Maoyan Film, while also curating digital art initiatives such as DemolnnShanghai. Her work spans filmmaking, animation, and virtual art, with projects presented at international festivals and teaching roles at institutions including Tsinghua University Academy of Arts and Design and Beijing Film Academy.

Rit.ai is a UK-based digital creator and AI artist known for bold, surreal visual storytelling and experimental AI filmmaking. Through striking characters and inflatable-inspired aesthetics, their work explores pop culture, fantasy, and the playful possibilities of generative imagery.

Rony Efrat is a filmmaker, researcher, and educator working across film, emerging technology, and narrative strategy. Through research-driven projects and teaching on critical AI and systems theory, their work bridges disciplines to explore how storytelling can shape culture, institutions, and collective futures.

Roxanne Ducharme is an Emmy®-winning French-Canadian filmmaker, illustrator, and animator with over four decades of experience in film, television, and advertising. Now working in AI filmmaking, she combines traditional animation expertise with generative tools to create bold, cinematic visual storytelling.

Ruby Nian is a London-based AI-focused motion graphics artist and 3D generalist whose work blends animation, design, and emerging technology. Originally from Taipei, she brings over a decade of experience creating digital campaigns and motion work for global clients, integrating AI tools into her evolving animation practice.

Sijin Liu is a London-based film and visual director whose work spans film, music videos, and mixed media. With over fifteen years of experience across mixed media and visual storytelling, she is known for a distinctive aesthetic sensibility and a refined approach to creative problem-solving. Her work has received international recognition, including awards at the Europe Music Video Awards and Seoul International AI Film Festival.

Squawkwork is a Los Angeles–based AI art duo formed by creators Vienna Thurlbeck and Maria Haras. Working with generative tools and experimental visual techniques, the pair create surreal, cinematic imagery that explores new forms of AI-driven storytelling. Their collaborative practice focuses on pushing emerging creative workflows while developing distinctive visual worlds shaped through artificial intelligence.

Tabitha Swanson is a New York–based creative technologist, artist, and founder of SEEK/FIND, a community initiative exploring the intersection of technology, culture, and purpose. Her work spans AI film, design, and emerging media, with exhibitions at venues including Art Basel, Fotografiska, Transmediale, and the Venice Film Festival.

Tammy Lovin is a VR, AR, and XR creator whose work spans virtual architecture, phygital fashion, and immersive digital experiences. Through her practice as a creator, trainer, and speaker, she explores how emerging technologies reshape design, identity, and interactive storytelling.

TEDRA, also known as TT The Artist, is an award-winning filmmaker, AI designer, and multidisciplinary creative whose work blends music, film, fashion, and culture into bold visual storytelling. Known for projects like the Netflix documentary Dark City Beneath the Beat and acclaimed AI-driven films, her practice centers BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and women-led narratives while pushing the boundaries of contemporary cinema.

The Garra Sisters are Barcelona-based AI filmmakers working in surreal and supernatural storytelling. Writing, directing, editing, and producing their films independently, they create atmospheric works that blend horror, fantasy, and experimental visual language. Their film Morphé explores the mutability of identity through a haunting narrative in which a woman’s obsession with a snake begins to unravel her sense of reality.

Verena Puhm is a creative producer, Gen AI director, and TV writer with over a decade of experience in international film and television. Her work focuses on developing culturally impactful storytelling for major networks including CNN, BBC, and Netflix, blending traditional production expertise with emerging AI-driven creative approaches.

Veronika Pell, also known as Mindeye, is an award-winning creative professional and AI artist whose work spans film, television, photography, and multimedia arts. Using tools like Midjourney and Runway, she creates striking visual narratives that blend artistic experimentation with storytelling and contemporary digital techniques.

Yue Yang (YY) is a designer, illustrator, and art director whose work moves between waking reality and dreamlike states. Through visual systems spanning identity, publication, and motion, she explores how language, philosophy, and everyday objects can translate drifting consciousness into poetic visual narratives.