Highlights from FMX 2026

Last week, Lux Aeterna headed to Stuttgart for FMX (Film & Media Exchange), one of the biggest industry conferences going. It was an extra-special event this year, with FMX celebrating a mega 30 years of the conference, once again taking over the grand Haus der Wirtschaft with talks and workshops covering everything from the latest Hollywood films to indie animations to immersive experiences and more.

This year’s theme was “The Road Ahead”, placing an emphasis on innovation, the state of the art, and how the landscape around our industries is changing.

With me from Lux Aeterna was director Rob Hifle, VFX director Paul Silcox, and VFX supervisor Tav Flett. We weren’t just out there to network and nerd out, all four of us were there to talk about Lux Aeterna’s sci-fi short film, RENO, and all the innovation that went into making it.

The talk had something for everyone; Rob spoke on directing the film and how we planned for success, Paul covered the procedural systems that powered the character of RENO, Tav got into the technical challenges involved in using virtual production, and I spoke about our investigations into whether generative AI was right for the project.

It was great to see ILM out there talking about The Dinosaurs - Lux Aeterna worked alongside the team at ILM on the hit Netflix documentary and so it was especially interesting to hear about the work they did. Truly an epic project, and one we’re very proud to have been a part of.

Being big sci-fi buffs, we made sure to catch the multiple talks on the VFX work that went into Project Hail Mary. Tav found Jonni Isaacs’ talk on compositing for the film super interesting. And of course, we had to check out the talk on Avatar: Fire and Ash, an absolutely massive project!

Legendary director and Stuttgarter, Roland Emmerich, gave a talk on his sci-fi classic, Independence Day. The film was also celebrating a 30th anniversary, and Roland went over some of the pioneering VFX that brought that film to life.

Speaking of classic VFX, Hugo Guerra and Iain Failes did a special live VFX Notes podcast from FMX, covering the hotly debated question of “what is the greatest VFX shot ever?”, and the even more hotly debated question of “which bullet-time shot from The Matrix is the best?” This was exactly the kind of nerdiness I signed up for! Seriously though, there were plenty of incredible shots shown off that have stood the test of time and were responsible for getting so many of us into VFX.

All in all, we had an excellent FMX experience. It was a phenomenal display of creative projects, and a glimpse into the future with amazing showcases of student work and new technologies. We departed Stuttgart feeling very excited for The Road Ahead…and for returning in 2027.