The Marie Skłodowska-Curie project LIBRA, supported by the KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory, the Swedish Red Cross, ForumCiv, Digital Futures and the Centre for Anthropocene History proudly announce The Material Cloud Film Festival, a three-night film festival exploring the often unseen material realities behind artificial intelligence, including labour conditions, extractive supply chains, and power concentration.
As AI expands into nearly every sector of society, it is frequently framed as clean, efficient and intangible. Yet behind its sleek interfaces lie vast infrastructures, hidden workforces and resource-intensive systems that raise urgent ethical and political questions. Through film screenings and expert-led discussions, the festival invites audiences to ask: What lies behind the cloud?
Each evening features a carefully selected film exploring a different dimension of AI. Topics range from human labour and bias in training data to mineral extraction, contamination, and the environmental and emotional costs of sustaining algorithmic systems. All events are open to the public and free of charge.
Swedish Premiere Night
Time: Tuesday 14 April 2026, 17:00 – 20:00 (doors open 16:00)
Location: Bio Skandia, Drottninggatan 82
Language: English
Seats limited, please register here
Followed by a conversation with
- Anna Essen, Stockholm School of Economics
- Teresa Cerratto Pargman, Stockholm University
- Melanie Rideout, Swedish Red Cross
- Johan Fredrikzon, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
The screening will be followed by a mingle
The third movie of the film festival is “In the Belly of AI” (France,- 73′) and will be the premiere of the movie in Sweden.
Artificial Intelligence fuels our dreams and nightmares. But while tech giants promise the advent of a new humanity, behind the scenes AI remains totally hidden. While data centers concrete over landscapes and dry up rivers, millions of workers around the world prepare the billions of data that will feed Big Tech’s voracious algorithms, at the cost of their mental and emotional health. They are hidden in the belly of AI. Could they be the collateral damage of the “Longtermism” ideology that has been brewing in Silicon Valley for some years now?
This film festival is part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie project LIBRA, and is funded by the EU Commision, grant number 101150729.
The festival is curated and organised by Dr. Francesca Larosa, PI of the LIBRA project.
If you have any enquiries or questions related to the events, contact her at larosaclimate@gmail.com
The event is co-sponsored by Digital Futures
