International Federation of Actors (FIA)

Overview

The International Federation of Actors (FIA) is the global federation of performers' trade unions, guilds, and professional associations. Founded in 1952 and based in Brussels, FIA represents several hundred thousand performers through 85 affiliated unions and associations across more than 60 countries. The federation advocates for performers' rights, equitable remuneration, and professional standards at the international level, working with governments, international organizations (ILO, UNESCO, WIPO), and global entertainment companies. FIA's current President is Gabrielle Carteris, former SAG-AFTRA president, first elected in May 2021 and re-elected at the 23rd FIA World Congress in November 2025.

FIA's member organizations include SAG-AFTRA (United States), Equity (United Kingdom), ACTRA (Canada), MEAA (Australia), ANDA (Mexico), UAA (Spain), BFFS (Germany), and national performers' unions from every region. The federation provides a coordinated international voice that individual national unions cannot provide alone, particularly in international policy arenas where national unions have limited direct influence.

Member Organizations and Structure

FIA is governed by its Congress (held every four years), an Executive Committee, and a Presidium composed of the President and six Vice Presidents. The 23rd FIA World Congress took place November 12 to 15, 2025, in Birmingham, United Kingdom, hosted by Equity UK. Nearly 150 delegates from more than 61 countries attended, representing every continent. This was the first in-person Congress since 2016.

The Executive Committee includes representatives from at least 15 countries, currently including Japan, Croatia, Denmark, Mexico, South Africa, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, the United States, Sweden, France, Uruguay, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The FIA Secretariat is based in Brussels and coordinates the federation's day-to-day operations, regional groups (EuroFIA for Europe, FIA-LAT for Latin America), and the FIA Future Now young members committee.

FIA has two membership categories: regular members (national unions representing performers' interests) and associate members. Applications for membership must be sent to the Secretariat in writing, accompanied by the applicant union's rules, membership numbers, coverage information, and a recent audited financial statement. The Executive Committee admits new members if no objections are lodged within six weeks of circulation.

Artificial Intelligence and Performer Rights

AI-generated synthetic performance is the most urgent issue FIA addresses. The federation published a revised AI Guide in 2025 and launched a dedicated AI Resource Page in April 2026. The resource page brings together materials across five sections: industry guidelines and toolkits, collective agreement language and provisions (restricted to FIA members), advocacy campaigns, global public policy developments, and FIA news articles on AI.

At the 23rd World Congress in Birmingham (November 2025), FIA adopted Resolution No. 7 on the Protection of Performers Against Abusive Use of Artificial Intelligence. The resolution affirms that:

• Informed consent regarding the use of a performer's likeness, voice, or performance characteristics for all AI applications is a fundamental principle that should be respected in all jurisdictions
• All performers, regardless of the recognisability of their appearance or voice, deserve the same level of protection against AI exploitation
• All AI-generated content should be clearly labelled to ensure transparency
• FIA and its affiliates commit to a coordinated international response using industrial, legal, and legislative tools
• Collective bargaining is the ideal model for AI governance where sufficiently established
• International treaties provide the legal foundation for AI regulatory architecture

FIA also adopted Resolution No. 8 on promoting united representation of the creative sector in AI-related policymaking, committing to broader unity with other creative sector bodies on AI policy.

FIA's AI advocacy covers four key areas: informed consent (for past, current, and future performances), compensation (including postmortem and for previously recorded work), control (maximum periods of use, opt-out rights, and constraints on perpetuity grants), and exclusivity limitations. The federation maintains that copyright and neighboring rights should only protect human intellectual creativity, not AI-generated content.

Streaming Residuals and Digital Rights

The transition from broadcast television and physical home entertainment to streaming platforms has created challenges for performers' remuneration. Residual structures developed for broadcast and home entertainment do not translate directly to streaming economics. Streaming platforms' global scale creates jurisdictional challenges for national unions whose collective bargaining authority is territorially limited.

FIA's work on streaming residuals, secondary use of performance recordings, and digital rights management informs the positions that national unions take in their own collective bargaining. The federation also advances common international standards through lobbying at the EU, UNESCO, and WIPO levels.

What Filmmakers Should Know

For international productions engaging performers from multiple countries: A US production hiring performers from European countries may be subject to European performers' rights frameworks in addition to US union agreements. Each national union has its own collective bargaining agreement, residual structure, and working conditions standards. FIA's work on international performer rights standards provides context for understanding these diverse frameworks, but producers must consult each national union's specific agreement when engaging performers from that country.

For performers working internationally: FIA's advocacy at the global level extends the protections that national union membership provides into the international policy arena. The federation's AI resource page and AI Guide provide practical guidance on contractual protections performers should seek regarding AI use of their likeness and voice, regardless of which country they work in.

For producers navigating AI and performer rights: FIA's published positions on informed consent, compensation, and control provide a framework for what performers and their unions will expect in contract negotiations. The 2025 AI Guide and the Congress resolutions signal that performers' unions globally are aligned on requiring explicit consent, fair remuneration, and transparency for any AI use of performer data. Productions planning to use AI-generated replicas or synthetic performances should expect contractual obligations around disclosure, consent, and payment in any jurisdiction with a FIA-affiliated union.

See Also

For the US performers' union that is FIA's largest member organization, see SAG-AFTRA in this directory. For comparable international federations of directors and producers, see FERA and FIAPF in this directory. For budgeting international cast agreements, use the Indie Film Budget Calculator to estimate performer costs across multiple jurisdictions.