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AOTO Brings Creators and Technology Together at CITS 2026, Celebrating the Best in Virtual Production

The third CITS, held during BIRTV 2026 in Beijing, China, explored the changing relationship between AI, virtual production and filmmaking — and presented The 1st AOTO Golden Screen Awards.

Chen Liang | Co-founder & COO, DAWA

BEIJING, CHINA — August 20, 2026 — What happens when AI, LED virtual production and real-time technology stop being separate tools and start becoming part of the same creative process?

That question shaped CITS 2026, held on August 20 during BIRTV 2026 in Beijing, China.

Now in its third year, the CinemaTech Innovation & Trends Summit was jointly hosted by China Broadcasting International Economic and Technical Cooperation Co., Ltd. (CBIC), an organizer of BIRTV, AOTO, and the Chinese Society of Cinematographers (CNSC). The forum brought cinematographers, directors, virtual production specialists and technology companies together to look at where filmmaking is heading next.

This year’s theme, “AI + XR Reshaping Content Creation,” reflected a conversation that has moved well beyond whether virtual production works. The focus now is how to make it work better for filmmakers.

Across the day, discussions explored how AI, LED stages, real-time rendering, robotic camera systems and digital environments are becoming increasingly connected — and how that changes decisions around lighting, camera movement, environments and production design.

Among the speakers, Rasmus Eriksson, Cinematographer and Virtual Production Supervisor at VP Nordic, shared several productions created with AOTO LED technology.

Rather than building the biggest possible LED volume, his projects took a more practical approach: configure the LED around what the shot actually needs.

A prehistoric world. A stationary historic tram surrounded by a moving environment. Fourteen scenes completed in one day for a Netflix production. Different productions, but one principle: the scene comes first. The LED design follows.

Rasmus Eriksson | Cinematographer & Virtual Production Supervisor, VP Nordic

The same relationship between technology and creativity carried through to The 1st AOTO Golden Screen Awards, presented as part of CITS 2026.

Created to recognize outstanding film and video works produced in AOTO LED virtual production studios around the world, the awards put the focus not simply on technology, but on what filmmakers are creating with it.

Four productions from Europe, Mexico, Japan and China were selected as finalists by a jury of cinematography and industry professionals.

The Gold Award and USD 10,000 prize went to VP Nordic’s Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, a short film that used an LED volume to recreate a prehistoric world while blending practical and virtual light into a unified visual environment.

The Silver Award and USD 5,000 prize went to Mexican production team Simplemente for Charly Leyendas, which used LED virtual production and AI-generated environments to move across multiple locations and times of day within a single shooting day.

Japan’s Virtual Space and China’s Chengdu Film Culture VP Studio Promotional Film completed the four finalists.

For AOTO, the conversations at CITS and the work recognized by the Golden Screen Awards pointed in the same direction: virtual production is becoming less about the LED wall itself — and more about what filmmakers can do with it.

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