Will Rowan
Computer vision researcher and freelance film critic. I work on video foundation models and world models for the creative industries, finding ways to democratise Hollywood-grade VFX tools for productions of any budget.
PhD from the University of York, with publications at ICLR and ECCV. One of 200 filmmakers selected for Berlinale Talents 2025, and simultaneously one of 8 critics worldwide for Talents Press. Co-founder and CEO of PXLD, a University of York spinout building the next generation of filmmaking tools, featured in Variety and Screen Daily.
Recent
Best Presentation, ICVSS 2025 (Neuralatex) Best Poster, ECCV 2024 1 of 8 critics worldwide, Berlinale Talents Press Featured in Variety Featured in Screen Daily Published in Cineuropa PXLD selected for Berlinale startup programme CEO, PXLD, AI virtual production startup Best Presentation, ICVSS 2025 (Neuralatex) Best Poster, ECCV 2024 1 of 8 critics worldwide, Berlinale Talents Press Featured in Variety Featured in Screen Daily Published in Cineuropa PXLD selected for Berlinale startup programme CEO, PXLD, AI virtual production startup
news
| Mar 13, 2026 | Joined the organising committee for the Conference on Visual Media Production (CVMP) as Socials Chair. |
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| Mar 1, 2026 | Won 2nd place at the UCL AI Festival Hackathon with Foresight, an AI research intelligence platform. Built with Simon Luo. |
| Jan 15, 2026 | Launched opencall.fyi, a curated platform helping emerging artists discover residencies, fellowships, grants, and competitions. |
| Sep 20, 2025 | PXLD selected for the Zinemaldia Startup Challenge at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Featured in Variety. |
| Aug 15, 2025 | Attended the European Forum Alpbach in the Austrian Alps as a scholarship recipient. |
| Aug 5, 2025 | Selected for the REAL Academy at the Locarno Film Festival. Directed Film Fever, a 9-minute experimental documentary. |
| Jul 15, 2025 | Presented Neuralatex, the world’s first machine learning library written entirely in LaTeX, at the International Computer Vision Summer School (ICVSS). Awarded Best Presentation. |
| Feb 28, 2025 | Chaired the BMVA Symposium on 3D Computer Vision at the British Machine Vision Association. |