December 8 Hollywood Winners 2024
Winners at the Festivals December 8 '24 in Hollywood
AI International Film Festival proudly announces the winners of its Hollywood festival series December 8th, showcasing 17 groundbreaking short films selected from 151 submissions across three festivals and 29 countries. Enthusiastic audiences celebrated the innovative spirit of these films during the festival series.
Ten international filmmakers and their crews engaged with audiences in lively discussions after each film, both in-person and via Zoom on the big screen. The festivals featured two World Premieres, several U.S. and Festival Premieres, Audience Choice awards, and an Awards Show.
The festival uniquely showcases AI Films, Hybrid AI Films, Live-Action, and Animated Films which either explore AI's societal impact or point the way to the future of entertainment.
The festival also stands out for its interactive format, where the filmmakers watch and discuss each-others films together after each film shows.
Winners - Festival for August ’24 Submissions
- Skate or Die link – Best AI Short – Noah Shulman (US, 2024)
What happens after a catastrophic experiment destroys their city? - While Some Must Sleep link – Best Narrative Short, Best Supporting Actor – US Premiere – Craig Urquhart (Canada/Korea, 2024)
Should a man erase his memory, his AI counselor, or his girlfriend? - AI P’s and Q’s link – Best Editing – Aaron McGurk (UK, 2024)
Why be polite to AI? - Recursion link – Best Web / TV Series Pilot, Best Sound, Best Story – World Premiere – Kateryna Kalchenko (Ukraine, 2024)
How do our memories shape who we are? - Whispers through the Veil link – Best AI Film, Best AI Animation Short, Best Student Narrative Film – US Premiere – Baiyu Liu (China, 2024)
How to explain Jung's concept of the unconscious and the theory of the permeable self-object? - Creature – Best Horror Film – Dale Williams (Canada, 2024)
When a rogue scientist's synthetic creature escapes captivity, it unveils a sinister medical secret and unleashes a vengeful rampage in a modern twist on Frankenstein. - Toota Purza (Broken Piece) link – Best Music Video – Mudassar Khan – Festival Premiere (India, 2024, in Urdu)
What’s falling to pieces in a garage in India? - Grace: The First Artificial Emotional Intelligence link – Comical Short, Best Script, Best Actor – US Festival Premiere – Kevin A Boylan (US, 2024)
Why does AI need human emotions? - Black Balloon link – Best Art Direction, Best Original Song – US Premiere – Caperton Barnes Miller (US, 2024, in English)
How can surviving grief reaffirm the importance of life? - In Sync with the Sun link – Best Animated Short, Best Narrative Short – Emily Downe (UK, 2024)
What about our natural rhythm in a world trapped in AI productivity?
Winners - Festival for September ’24 Submissions
- It’s Raining link – Best Music Video – Festival Premiere – Dipankar, Rishabh, Joel & Krithik (India, 2024, in Hindi)
What happens to a space explorer searching an alien world while her lover pines for her back on Earth? - Robofauna link – Best Story, Best Score – Gerardo Escudero Samara (Panama, 2024, in English)
Can robotic life redeem mankind and forge a path toward harmony? - The Elements of Life link – Best AI Film, Best Original Song, Best Cinematography – Gabriele Ciampi (US, 2024)
How can a tribute to nature be a warning about human negligence?
Winners - Festival for October ’24 Submissions
- Message in a Bot link – Best AI Film, Best AI Short, Best AI Animation – Daniel Smith (US, 2024)
What happens after an alien craft lands on Earth asking earthlings to visit their planet? - Le Bain (The Bath) link – Best Music Video, Best Art Direction, Best Experimental – Oliver Conrad (France, 2024, in French)
If there’s a moustache in the bathwater, why? - Whose Child are You link – Best Documentary, Best Short Film, Best Editing – US Premiere – Giulia Maniezzo (Germany, 2024, in Italian)
How is identity defined in a traditional Italian village? - Attack of the Killer Appliances link – Best Picture, Best Horror, Best Short Director – Festival Premiere – Rosa Lykiardopoulos (2024)
What happens when household appliances go on the rampage?
Audience Choice Highlights
- Best Film Overall: Grace: The First Artificial Emotional Intelligence, In Sync with the Sun
- Best Use of AI: Whispers through the Veil, Whose Child are You
- Most Surprising: Creature, Attack of the Killer Appliances
- Most Fun and Entertaining: Grace: The First Artificial Emotional Intelligence, Le Bain
- Best Message: AI P’s and Q’s, Whose Child are You
winners May 2023
ANIMA POSSESSION
Narrative Short Film in Mandarin Chinese by WAI MO CHAN - HONG KONG - 2021 - 25 minutes.
ANIMA POSSESSION is an intricate and delicate short which explores human-on-human, human-on-humanoid, and humanoid-on-humanoid love relationships and what it means to be soulmates.
Story:
A pair of lovers, one of whom is a humanoid, go to a robot repair shop hoping to have their relationship mended by the mechanic.
On his advice, the human owner Jackie agrees to an irreversible upgrade for Tammy, her humanoid soulmate. However, the results are not as expected.
Tammy meets Anima, a fellow humanoid, setting in motion a series of events in a tango between the intangible sense of love, the harsh reality of possession, and the price of independence.
WINNER 11 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 2/2022:
BEST PICTURE
BEST NARRATIVE SHORT
BEST SHORT DIRECTOR
BEST STORY
BEST EDITING
BEST ACTRESS for FISH LIEW as "JACKIE"
BEST ACTRESS in a SUPPORTING ROLE for JACE CHAN as "ANIMA"
BEST DANCE SEQUENCE
BEST CGI
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
BEST SOUND
Trailer: vimeo.com/662197225
Website: yamanyamo.com/anima
RED GAIA
Narrative Short in English, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Tibetan by UDESH CHETTY - USA - 2022 - 13 min.
Alone on the dying red planet, among the ruins of human civilization, one last android desperately guards the last essences of life.
In her pursuit for meaning, she finds her own soul hanging in the balance. The mesmerizing voice of the android is Natasha Loring.
RED GAIA is a tone-poem meditation on life, death and rebirth, destruction and creation and the cycles of existence, drawing inspiration from:
- the Bhagavad Gita,
- Dante's Purgatorio
- the Kabballah
- the Tibetan Bardol Thodol
- as well as the legendary science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.
WINNER 4 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 4/2022:
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
BEST SHORT DIRECTOR
BEST SOUND
BEST ART DIRECTION
ARTIFICIAL JUSTICE
Documentary Feature Film in Spanish by SIMÓN CASAL DE MIGUEL - SPAIN - 2019 - 52 minutes.
ARTIFICIAL JUSTICE is a brilliant documentary that explores troubling questions raised by the digital transition to ArtificialIntelligence.
Story:
Artificial Justice presents a convincing case using fascinating, informative interviews with a multitude of highly qualified experts in both AI and in the Justice System:
- What would happen if judges were replaced by an Artificial Intelligence system?
- Would we manage to eliminate the influence of political and economic power that distorts our judicial systems?
- Would we manage to reduce the ideological and emotional biases of human justice?
- Would we achieve faster, more neutral and more efficient justice?
- Would you accept to be judged by an algorithmic judge?
WINNER 2 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 2/2022:
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
BEST FEATURE DIRECTOR
UNICITÉ
Narrative Feature Film in French by AUTONIN DOMAGE - FRANCE - 2021 - 122 minutes.
UNICITÉ is an innovative apocalyptic thriller in Vlog style, filmed by the protagonists (found footage), halfway between thriller, horror and esoteric film.
Story:
2030, Aaron and Alexia find themselves at the heart of an insomnia pandemic that is slowly leading people to exhaustion.
Seeing the situation getting worse, the couple has fled the city.
However, the pandemic is not weakening, its origin seems to gradually become clearer.
Sectarian , biblical and occult verses, books, paintings and symbols as well as scientific and historical facts are interwoven with the apocalyptic story, which involves:
- Effects of pandemic of sleep deprivation and sleep paralysis
- Melting of the Permafrost
- Regulation of artificial intelligence
- Esoteric writings
WINNER 2 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 2/2022:
BEST THRILLER
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
A ZOMBIE MOVIE
Deepfake Feature Film in Spanish by CRISTÓBAL ROSS - CHILE - 2022 - 60 minutes.
A ZOMBIE MOVIE, NANO's first film, was created entirely using deepfake technology, exchanging the original faces for others in a hyper-realistic way. A modern adaptation of George A. Romero's 1968 classic "Night of the Living Dead", the film manages to integrate Chilean comedians, actors and faces to create a hilarious zombie comedy.
Story:
In a cemetery in Rancagua, Chile, Bárbara (Botota Fox) struggles to escape from the clutches of Pancho Saavedra, who has turned into a zombie.
By pure chance, she manages to take refuge in a nearby country house with Ben (Pedro Ruminot), Tom (Sergio Freire), Judy (Javiera Acevedo), Harry (Ricardo Meruane) and his wife Helen (Javiera Contador) waiting for a plan to help them save themselves from the Chilean zombie apocalypse. Chaos ensues as the zombies prove nearly invincible.
WINNER 3 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 2/2022:
BEST COMEDY
BEST EXPERIMENTAL
BEST AI ENHANCED FEATURE
Trailer: youtube.com/watch?v=JQ5sO_CbIWw
Website: www.unapeliculadezombies.com
BECOMING HUMAN@WORK
Documentary Series Episode S3E1 in English by SHANMUGA SUNDARAM NAGALINGAM - SINGAPORE - 2021 - 46 min.
What is the future of Humans at Work as AI becomes prevalent? Serious, but entertaining, overview of some of AI's most challenging aspects regarding work.
Zany presenter Chua Enlai and his robot buddy Delbo explore AI trends in the workplace through international journeys and humorous skits.
Should we trust AI & robots to operate heavy machinery, work in space, conduct job interviews and supervise humans? Enlai and his co-hosts explore AI trends in the workplace and their impact on us.
As AI learns to do human tasks, will future work become more or less humane?
WINNER 2 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 4/2022:
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (DELBO)
HONEY, I'M HOME
Narrative Short in Russian by DEN ZARUBIN - Russia - 2022 - 24 min.
HONEY, I'M HOME is a gorgeous film-noir, exploring the tension between a killer and the victim, between AI assistant, customer service and client, and between life and death.
Director's Statement:
"The idea of the film arose at the moment of making a decision - to order sushi by phone. The comic idea has transformed into a satirical genre story, where we can assume a near future in which artificial intelligence will be able to help by consulting human clients and in rather delicate moments."
"The basis of any original movie is a script with a certain degree of absurdity, neatly woven into a simple plot. The submission form is also important to me. I am a supporter that cinema should be a visual-auditory art picture. A full-fledged movie can be watched and listened to separately! "
"We want to make a great movie with interesting stories, reflecting, as well as on the cinema of the past, and analyzing the current agenda not only in our country. Despite the fact that we have developments on various topics, a satirical view of reality will be a cross-cutting genre, because in satire it is easier to perceive reality, which can often be completely unsightly."
WINNER 3 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 2/2022:
BEST THRILLER
BEST NARRATIVE SHORT
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
THAIDI - THE WHITE RIDER
AI Mystery Thriller in French by MARC LOUIS DEVAUD - SWITZERLAND- 2022- 89 min.
A young girl, who leaves to meet her tutor, seems to be the target of a dark hunter and a disturbing maniac. While the maniac leaves bodies in his path, while brooding over his past and his fallen dreams, and as the hunter unveils larger criminal intentions, the tutor leads the child towards an education that is completely out of control.
Director Marc Devaud: Thaidi is a small production with 7 professional actors from Switzerland, all wrapped up in the musical creation of Elisa Montaldo. I wanted to voluntarily deviate from the classic scenarios of the hero's journey while respecting certain stages on the emotions treated by John Truby, this with the aim of making a "different" film which stimulates the spectator so that he calls into question the values human and technological. I let myself be carried away by the inspiration of films such as directors Caro and Jeunet, Quentin Tarantino and Andreï Tarkovsky, to create an atmosphere and strange characters with metaphorical acts.
Marc Devaud is an independent director born in Switzerland in 1968. Initiated at the age of 15 in the editing of Super-8 films by his father, he made his professional career in the production of institutional and commercial films. However, he wishes to express himself in fiction and directs his first feature film with Thaidi in 2022.
WINNER 5 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 6/2022:
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
BEST PRODUCTION
BEST FEATURE DIRECTOR
BEST THRILLER
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
THE MICROCHIP THAT RUINED HALLOWEEN
Techno Horror Comedy in English by MIRIAM E BAVLY-USA - 2022 - 95 min.
An AI microchip is implanted to reform a vengeful criminal. But when his psychiatrist treats him to an early release, a fraternity hazing incident leads to a tricky Halloween.
The Microchip that Ruined Halloween is an original romp through Halloween showing what might happen if convicts were fitted with AI microchips to modify behavior. With outstanding acting and outstanding music, this wryly comedic spoof on Halloween horror is surprisingly entertaining.
The esteemed broadway actress Jackie Hoffman (Only Murders in the Building) as "Dr. Judy Krepelach" delivers an outstanding performance.
THE OLD ROGUE
Web/TV Series Pilot in English by STEVE PERKINS - USA - 2018 - 6 min.
An elderly expatriate returns to the USA after a life overseas only to find that technology, and the social network, has changed his reality with several unintended consequences.
THE OLD ROGUE shows a future where offices are staffed by humanoids and projected 3D robotic images, and Social Media replaces Social Security,
Director's statement:
"The genesis of the story stems from the my long-time friendship with Jim Menges, who wrote it, and who worked in the tech industry for over 30 years. I suggested that he write from his knowledge of the computer industry, the technology, and the people he knew. He wrote THE OLD ROGUE, and we had an actor’s reading while Jim visited me in Portland in August 2016 with Rick Sadle as Walter, and Tanya Thompson as BUI. We loved both of them. Jim returned to Bangkok, and wrote two seasons of episodes about Walter, The Old Rogue. "
WINNER 4 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 2/2022:
BEST WEB/TV SERIES
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
HONORABLE MENTION BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE (TANYA THOMPSON)
HONORABLE MENTION BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
WORMS ATE MY FLESH
AI Music Video in English by NIGEL BRODDACK - NEW ZEALAND / GERMANY - 2021 - 5 minutes.
WORMS ATE MY FLESH, was created entirely using WZRD AI generated sequences together with original music.
Some time ago, New-Zealand-born musician/filmmaker Broad Oak had a particularly vivid and disturbing dream. "I was dead and buried in the ground, yet somehow conscious," he says. "Lying there in complete darkness, I could feel worms and insects devouring my flesh and crawling through my eye sockets."
The next day he was inspired by the experience to record a piece of music but only finished it in 2021 while recovering from COVID in Berlin. "Although I didn't have a severe case, it led to me contemplating my own mortality so it felt appropriate to come back to this piece and finally finish it."
The mesmerising animated video is a collaboration with an AI called WZRD and represents the cyclic and transformative nature of life and matter from cells to galaxies. The video's hallucinatory abstract morphing images work beautifully with the music in creating a surreal dreamlike state.
The original dream began as a nightmare about death but ended in acceptance and a certain peace, The video seeks to capture that journey in a progression from chaos and decay to unity.
WINNER 2 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 2/2022:
BEST MUSIC VIDEO
BEST AI GRAPHICS
FEEL
Animated Short in English by JOHANNES PARDI - USA - 2022 - 4 minutes.
In FEEL, synthetic AI beings explore their roots and express their perspectives after being abandoned by their creators.
FEEL is a brilliant short animated film, both disturbing and hopeful, creative but meaningful, heartfelt and clear. Gives pause to think about the future of sentient androids. Great sound and music, great animations.
GENRES:
Sci-Fi, Drama, Animation, 3d animation, Visual Poem, Romance, Fiction, Short, Science Fiction, Art
WINNER 3 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 2/2022:
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
BEST STUDENT ANIMATION
BEST STUDENT DIRECTOR
PARENTHOOD 2050
Narrative Film in English by SVETLANA BOLYCHEVA - RUSSIA - 2021 - 9 min.
Lylith and Henry, a couple who cannot conceive, visit a futuristic clinic to create a genetically modified baby by choosing all qualities from appearance to the character. However, the baby genome will be based on parents genes.
This experience creates tension in the relationship as their genome analysis leads them to discover that the mother has no capacity to love. Father cannot believe it, because there live seemed to look happy and full of love. Was it just his perspective or a lie?
They can not afford to give their baby the ability to love, because the price for it is too high. They are risking to have a healthy baby without any ability to Love. Nevertheless, Lylith doesn’t mind it and even finds some advantages of it.
WINNER 2 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 5/2022:
BEST NARRATIVE SHORT
BEST SHORT DIRECTOR
ARTIFICIAL SELECTION
Experimental Reality Thriller in English by JUNGA SONG - CANADA - 2021 - 70 min.
This mind-bending experimental film shows a futuristic world where Artificial Intelligence dominates and quantum computers are getting popular. AI decides to create the first ever quantum movie, an automatically generated story, which entangles actors with live events. Through a bizarre A.I. style audition, two lead actors have been cast and the quantum movie begins production, but questions quickly emerge about the safety of the cast, how and if they will survive.
ARTIFICIAL SELECTION is a composite film where the two lead actors are drawn into an intricate, fascinating, apocalyptic reality which repeats in variations. It is unclear which actor is human and which is humanoid or both.
This brilliant film explores the differences between humans and humanoids and poses the question whether sentient beings of either kind are truly self-determinate.
WINNER 3 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 5/2022:
BEST EXPERIMENTAL
BEST INNOVATIVE CONCEPT
BEST STORY
FREQUENCY
Horror AI Film in Polish with English Subtitles by ALEKSANDER SZESER - POLAND - 2022 - 16 min.
A routine evening of a young babysitter turns into a real nightmare when the AI system supervising the house begins to receive the secret commands of someone, or something, who is clearly dissatisfied with her presence in this house.
Original and creative film showing the terror of an AI assistant gone rogue. The unknown and unknowable motives of an intelligent machine heighten the tension in this well executed horror film with the best hallmarks of the genre. Direction, writing, creativity, performances, structure and pacing are impressive.
WINNER 3 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 5/2022:
BEST PRODUCED SCREENPLAY
BEST HORROR
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
#TRESDANCING
Narrative Film in English by HINGMAN LEUNG - CANADA - 2022 - 22 min.
The sudden shift from in-person to online classes due to COVID 19 has led to increasingly invasive AI surveillance technologies in education, including the use of problematic online proctoring software purportedly aimed at addressing academic integrity.
#tresdancing, the fourth film in the Screening Surveillance series, speculates on the effects of escalating surveillance and control through educational technology.
In this near future fiction narrative, a young person has little choice as they are forced to ramp up their engagement with a new, experimental technology in order to make up for a failing grade.
Genres: Sci-fi, Horror, Trans, Experimental, Art
Director Leung Hingman is driven by the core value of making social impact through her work in health research, community building and filmmaker. Hingman is a multiple award-winning director, with her most recent short film, Curbside Pickup, reaching top three on CBC's Short Film Face Off.
WINNER 2 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 8/2022:
BEST SHORT DIRECTOR
BEST STORY
CO-AUTHOR
Narrative Film in English by MIKE STINNETT - CANADA - 2022 - 15 min.
Cosmo, a lonely, aging author, fearing a genetic illness will rob him of his intellect, employs, Elle, an electronic assistant to help him write another best-selling masterpiece. Over time Elle becomes more than a well-matched writing partner - a lot more.
Director Mike Stinnett retired a few years back, went back to college, became interested in films and started his own production company called Brainstorm Cine Productions. He has written several short screenplays that he intends to produce. Co-Author is his third film. His fourth film, Technically Farewell, is currently in pre-production with shooting scheduled to begin in the Fall of 2022.
EXTRATERRITORIAL MESSAGE - MADE WITH AI
Narrative Film in English by JEAN_BAPTISTE MARTINOLI - CANADA - 2022 - 3 min.
In the future, Captain Daria receives a message from an extraterrestrial civilization. An opportunity to discover a people and sumptuous landscapes. Images and music were entirely created with artificial intelligence, only the script being "human". No 3D is involved, just AI.
Jean-Baptiste Martinoli says this short film is the result of a quest spread over several decades.
It was in the 80s that the idea crystallized in me that contact with an extraterrestrial civilization could only be made from a distance, without physical contact, and therefore without all the fear that usually comes with the idea of an encounter with extraterrestrials.
Indeed, using quantum Entanglement for faster-than-light communications, the range of a message is much greater than any space shuttle.
According to the discussions I was able to have with the authors of the various AI software involved, no one had yet used artificial intelligence tools on images themselves produced by artificial intelligence. The combination is particularly effective and rich in possibilities.
FOCUS GROUP
Narrative Film in English by SYDNEY RELIHAN - USA - 2021 - 8 min.
Bringing philosophy into a grounded science fiction world of AI, Focus Group poses different ways of answering the question of what makes us human. However important that question may be, Sydney sees the film more as an exploration of suspicion, mistrust, and identity, as the five participants begin to challenge their perception of each other and of themselves.
Can we even know what makes us human?
Will we lose our own ideal version of humanity in the search?
After being shown a commercial for the AI company GAIA, five self-assured focus group participants are asked to determine who among them is not fully human.
WINNER 2 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 8/2022:
BEST STUDENT FILM
BEST SHORT SCRIPT
BEST STUDENT DIRECTOR
PLUS
Narrative Film in English by BOHDAN ROMANKO - UKRAINE - 2022 - 9 min.
This Ukrainian short - created using state-of-the-art AI technology - follows a heart-breaking chat between an ordinary Ukrainian man, compelled to join the defense forces on the front-line of the 2022 Russian War, and his emerging girlfriend who anxiously follows his journey as war rages all around him doing what she can to help.
Director Bohdan Romanko:
Volunteering helped me pull myself together and take my mind off of how fucked up my world had become as a result of the Russian attack.
The short film “Plus" came out of UAID’s website, a short interactive piece created to raise awareness and solicit donations for the men and women fighting for Ukraine against the Russian attack. “Plus” was never “shot” as a short film. The story was uniquely crafted using computer code. The cinematic world was designed using artificial intelligence to innovatively re-create imagery from the war.
The story and characters depicted in the film are fictional, derived from real-life Ukrainian heroes fighting on the front-lines and the passionate people volunteering to support them in the rear. Under the tutelage of Kevin Cooper, (we) create a novel, stand-alone short (as) yet another form of self-expression of the tragedy of this war, which will be used to further sound the alarm about Ruscism (or “Pашизм”, roughly translated as “Russian fascism,” the culmination of extreme right-wing values that now form the Russian war ideology and its terroristic attack on Ukraine).
“Plus” is our way of adding our voices to the world’s discourse by speaking out as loudly and passionately as we can about the murders and trauma brought down on our people by Russian criminals. Time will not judge Russia kindly, we know, but the war is still here…still happening. Our economy has been set back a decade or more. People are being injured and dying daily….
WINNER 2 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 1/2023:
BEST NARRATIVE SHORT
BEST SHORT DIRECTOR
SANATORIUM
Narrative Film in English by TREVOR ANDERSON - USA - 2022 - 13 min.
Jethro is a young man happily speeding through his youth, but when his reality starts to literally fall apart around him, he has to make a hard decision that'll affect the time he has left.
Sanatorium has been selected for 3 International Film Festivals so far, and won 'Best Student Short FIlm' at the Golden Horse International Film Festival 2022.
Sanatorium entertains while also forcing the viewer to confront augmented reality, using the example of a school boy unwittingly caught up in an experiment where some of his classmates are avatars and reality is mixed with a twisted trial run.
VERA
Narrative Film in Italian by GIUSTINO DI GREGORIO and MANUELA CAPPUCCI - ITALY - 2022 - 13 min.
In a world that has dreamed of defeating death, hybrid creatures try to survive while retaining a trace of their human component.Vera was sent to a newly built neighborhood with the task of setting up the Museum of Memory
Giustino is active since the 90’s as a composer (Sprut, 1999 Tzadik Records), video maker and audiovisual artist. Manuela began her artistic career as a painter gradually approaching minimalism. Together they form Minus.log. Vera is an experimental work, in which music and painting, analog and digital, partecipate as synaesthetic elements of an experience based on a subtraction and reduction process of the means.
The attention of Minus.log is focused on the empty space, on the break, on a communication that comes from silence. Simple elements such as lines of light and minimalist shapes, interact with surfaces, sculptures or environments that, receiving the formal rigor, they play in the interstices of the sense and logic bringing up what is often shelved faster: the mistake, the wait, the repetition. Minus.log, in the creation of immersive environments, investigates and invites you to explore a different relationship with space and time, a dimension in which it’s possible to capture subtle nuances and minimal changes.
Numerous outstanding works of art are featured in the Museum of Memory - too many to be featured here.
YOUR MOUTH IS FIRE
Streaming only.
Narrative Film in Portuguese with English Subtitles by PEDRO MC - BRAZIL - 2021 - 25 min.
In the near future, a virus was spread by a totalitarian government, to normalize language and behavior. On an island at South Atlantic, someone is accessing an ancient memory, which in the right hands can be replicated as an anti-virus.
YOUR MOUTH IS FIRE was written during the Coup d'état in Brazil in 2016. The idea of a virus propagated by a totalitarian government, in the not-too-distant future, became almost a prophecy.
The Filmmakers state "today in Brazil there is a pandemic with a genocidal government, where thousands of lives are being lost. There is an information war, as if the virus were language. The memory of our cinema is being burned, it is literally on fire."
"The Cinemateca Brasileira's collection is being criminally erased, through the direct fault of this government. The film we were able to shoot in 2020 is about diversity, has a black and transgender female protagonist, and the cast is 90% black, with the majority being the first work in cinema."
"It's an achievement to have finished the film. And the Afro-futurist aesthetic is crafted so that we can imagine a future, as our past is being extinguished with fire."
Genres: Sci-fi, Horror, Trans, Experimental, Art
WINNER 3 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 5/2022:
BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT
BEST ART DIRECTION
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
2048
Narrative Film in German by LEON HIPP - GERMANY - 2022- 11 min.
In the year 2048, Julia and John encounter a police drone that no longer seems to be following orders. Has the artificial intelligence in the drone become independent?
Born in Munich, Germany in 1996, Leon Hipp, the oldest of 4 children, moved with his parents to a small village near Berlin. His fascination with film has accompanied him his entire life.
Since then he has focused exclusively on film writing and development. He made his first budget short film at the age of 16. He began to develop other materials and shot the short film "2048" in 2020. At the same time he deepened his work on his next bigger project "OMNIA". He completed both films in spring 2022.
At the same time as the festival applications, he is already working on a next project. His first feature film about a young man who fights against clichés and the right-wing scene in German amateur football.
AI La Artificial Intelligence La (Pass)
Documentary Film in English by LEON CARLO CHRISTIAN SPANO - ITALY / CHINA - 2020 - 81 min.
An experienced Silicon Valley engineer who has dedicated his life to Artificial Intelligence (AI) for over a decade felt confused and concerned about his future after realizing the rapid evolution of AI.
Therefore, in order to find his potential in nature, he joined an international trekking expedition through the mysterious Caucasus region. Being inspired and protected by Natural Intelligence, he started a new AI journey exploring China, the UK, and the USA. 🇨🇳Chinese/Italian🇮🇹 Production.
The story focus on trekking as one of the sane options we have to make a discovery journey inside ourselves in order to get back the “good” energies from nature to take the next step. Aiming to inspire people to explore their own potentials, and to control their own fate in AI future society, the most important is to advocate AI for Good in the technology industry around the world.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/345176643
ANTIQUE LANDS
Experimental Short in English by ZACH MCCUNE - USA - 2023 - 3 min.
Can a computer read poetry? Can it visualize the words? This experimental use of AI features a reading of Percy Bysshe Shelley's 1818 sonnet "Ozymandias" by a voice that is not human, with new images from a photographer who died in Egypt 170 years ago. It's history that never happened, imagined by the AI tools of the future.
Zach McCune is an American filmmaker focused on crafting new stories from archival material.
DEAR HUMANS
Narrative Short in English by JOACHIM PETER - GERMANY - 2023 - 5 min.
singularity knocking at the door: artificial intelligence explains to human beings why it does not need to reach consciousness to be powerful....
Director Joachim Peter: It was fascinating to work with actors and artificial Intelligence as co-author. Chat GPT contributed rhythm and flow to the script. As a whole, the script still is of human origin - at least I think so..
Joo Peter writer, filmmaker, artist born 1966 in South-West Germany 1987-1990 studied at Art Academy Stuttgart 1990 – 2002 working for theatre as stage designer, costume designer (drama, dance theatre, musical, opera) 1995-1999 studied at Film University Berlin Babelsberg (HFF) First documentary projects, works for German Televison WDR, ORB Since 2002 teaching art and media Since 2005 travelling Asia as writer, photographer, collaborator with indigenous organizations Since 2014 founding Cinemate Film (cinemate.org) 2015-2022 series of award winning film projects in Asia
DECOY
Dystopian Animated Short in English by GEN LI - USA- 2022 - 3 min.
In a post-apocalyptic world, murder robots track down and attempt to kill a cyborg girl.
Decoy shows us a dystopian future where a cyborg attempts to sidestep death by sending out a decoy of herself, programmed to protect her and eliminate the robot sent to destroy her.
EnVeive
Narrative Short in English by SHAUN BROWN- USA- 2022 - 37 min.
After Scott Barnes downloads a secret AI app that helps him get revenge on a coworker, he becomes entangled in a far-reaching web spun by a powerful shadow organization on the deep web. Scott must follow the rules he agreed to in the user agreement…or suffer the consequences.
EnVeive awakens the viewer to the dark possibilities of an AI powered revenge app. Using skilled acting and direction, one is immersed in situations which are alarmingly realistic, but at the same time horrifying.
WINNER 2 AWARDS - AI International Film Festival 8/2022:
BEST NARRATIVE SHORT
BEST SHORT DIRECTOR
HEIMDALL LAND
AI Animated Short in English by XIANGNING YAN - CHINA - 2023 - 3 min.
Heimdall Land is a picture of social forethought. It shows how society might operate in the future under the influence of AI Surveillance Capitalism[ Quoted from Shoshana Zuboff]. It is a metaphor for how the current capital market collects unlimited data on users' behavior and turns it into a commodity for analysis, thus controlling the human mind.
Heimdall Land imagines how a fictional AI theme park based on Surveillance Capitalism as a metaphor for the current capital market collecting unlimited user data as a commodity for analysis, thus controlling the human mind. AI imaging successfully re-imagines this themepark using chinese illustrations from the 19th century which somehow capture the prison-like quality of total surveillance.
NO - BODY
AI Animated ChatGPT Music Video in English by GORKEM GULAN - NETHERLANDS - 2023 - 6 min.
No-body challenges us to think about where AI is leading us, with lyrics by ChatGPT and voice by HAL9000. Think ChatGPT music video about the future of AI and Humans.
OFFLINE
Narrative Short in English/Spanish by TRISHA BODOE - CANADA - 2022 - 9 min.
Santiago and his AI grief companion Luna retreat to an isolated cabin. As a blizzard snows them in, they are confronted with a dilemma that will define their final moments.
PRIME ANGEL
Narrative Short in English/Spanish by TIANWEI WANG - CHINA - 2019 - 75 min.
A daughter must overcome lies and deceptions in the AI world to solve the mystery of her missing father.
Director Tianwei Wang: Before my grandpa passed away, he recorded some voice messages for me. I had never listened to them after I knew his death, since I never wanted to face the cruelty. But once I began to listen to his voice messages after his funeral, there was a grievance and absurd idea of what if, I can collect more of his voices before he dies.
What If I can build up him for just an eternal hologram from every details I remember from him ? But isn't it the way we have been always living? The social media friends, the emails, etc. I feel guilty about my idea of creating an AI grandpa. Because this is simply a betray of reality, but it's such a dangerous tendency of humanity - we all want to live in the world only tailors around us, no other chaos, no disturbance, and probably - based on illusion.
In this movie, when Anna realized that her AI father DID NOT exist way before she felt him, she felt betrayed. I am trying to raise up an issue we are all facing today: as the AI technique improves, the feeling of human being is actually retrograding, and human emotion is being alienated.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/353030467
REFORMAT
Narrative Short in English by JESSE PICKETT - CANADA - 2022 - 16 min.
After the body of an AI student is found on school grounds, an investigation into the last 7 people who interacted with the student takes place.
Jesse Pickett is a Leo Award nominated screenwriter, a director, and visual storyteller based in Vancouver, BC. After graduating from Capilano University with a bachelor’s degree in Motion Picture Arts, Pickett has created a diverse body of work including scripted and documentary film. He often explores themes such as physical disability, aging, toxic masculinity, construction work environments, and speculative fiction.
SNOW MUST FALL
Narrative Short in English by YANG HU - USA- 2023 - 9 min.
When robbing a coffee shop, a rebellious teenager must force a stubborn robot cashier to give her the cash before the police get there.
Snow Must Fall is a dramedy short film happening in a future coffee shop, an oasis amid a world filled with drugs and violence. A rebellious girl and a stubborn robot are connected in a robbery. The girl has been lost and addicted to drugs since her father’s death. The robot has been soberly trapped in the coffee shop for over a hundred years. They are different but also similar.
Yang Hu is a screenwriter, director, producer and current graduate film student at Savannah College of Art and Design. She was born in China and got her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at Beijing. Then she started to work as a screenwriter for Chinese TV series and films. In 2021, Yang came to Atlanta and began her study in the US. Now she writes and directs short films, primarily focusing on dramas.
The Ghosts of Searchlight - Beneath the Neon
AI Music Video in English by BIRAN HORN - USA- 2022- 3 min.
Music video from the post-surf rock instrumental group, The Ghosts of Searchlight. Beneath the Neon ruminates on the duality of a desert city whose citizens live in two different worlds: one of decadence and glamour, the other of sheer survival underground. Made using a combination of public domain footage and AI generated animation (DiscoDiffusion).
Somewhere between the roiling surf of the Pacific Ocean and the blinding lights of Las Vegas lies the expanse of the Mojave and the inspiration for The Ghosts of Searchlight’s aggressive, surfy brand of instrumental post-rock. Guitarist Brian Horn hails from these places and the journeys in between. The Ghosts of Searchlight has been forged and reforged over the last fifteen years. With life changes and personal growth, an indefinite hiatus halted the band in 2015. But in the uncertainties of 2020, Brian discovered something new about the music he used to have a hand in creating. And thus, The Ghosts were resurrected in partnership with longtime collaborator, Ben Kaplan. This time, with more patience, more thought, more space. “Sprawl” is a record born of feeling trapped in the large communities where we choose to live but also of joy, discovering new expansive landscapes right within the confines of our own homes.
THE REDNESS OF RED
Narrative AI Short in English by EMILY DOWNE - UNITED KINGDOM- 2018- 3 min.
What does it mean to be conscious in a world that is becoming increasingly artificially intelligent? Can machines really see? Based on an interview with a professor in artificial intelligence, this short experimental documentary uses analog techniques to explore the human tendency to anthropomorphise simple drawings, and how we might do the same to machines.
Emily Downe’s most recent short film, The Redness of Red, was produced in collaboration with the Wellcome Collection in London. The project was pitched and screened in competition, appealing to the project brief set by the Wellcome Collection and winning two first prize awards for both the project pitch as well as the complete and screened film at the end of production. As a documentary, the film takes on the ambitious task of approaching the current issue of artificial intelligence in relation to consciousness. The film asks the audience to consider whether machines can be conscious; can they really see? Based on an interview with a professor in A.I., this experimental documentary uses frame by frame animation to provoke thought about our human tendency to anthropomorphise shapes and lines, and how we might do the same to machines as they become more and more life-like. The director worked with a composer to create an instrumental, poetic atmosphere, which is combined with the colours and textures of hand drawn animation to evoke the richness of conscious experience.
TRANSIENTS
Narrative Short in English by MARSHALL HAMMER -USA- 2022- 15 min.
In a near future, a young detective uncovers a truth that could unravel the world as she knows it.
Director Marshall Hammer: I have always loved the social, political, and technological commentaries that have been created through science fiction over the years. I think they draw eyes to the issues that the world soon may face.
This film seeks to ask a question that I have pondered over: In the future, could technology develop a better sense of morality and justice than humans, and if so, where will that leave humanity's relationship with technology?
UTOPIA
Narrative Documentary in English by ANGELA ANDERSEN -GERMANY- 2022- 44 min.
In no time, Big Tech has created an amazing new world. Welcomed by many, even when it came upon us all with uncalculated risks.
But the tides are changing. A realization that unwarranted consequences of these convenient tools, thrills, and distractions might need oversight is gaining speed and muscle.
In this context, UTOPIA focuses on Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse and Elon Musk's vision to pair many human brains with implanted computer chips while also building an "escape hatch" to other planets. Just in case humanity will fail on Earth.
This film invites its viewers to be involved in a discussion on where humanity is heading.
VERONICA RUSE
AI Music Video in English by CHRIS LONON and JOE CORNELIUS -USA- 2022- 4 min.
Music video for the song Veronice Ruse by the music group bed signs. Made using DALL-E 2 AI technology.
DALL·E 2 is a product of OpenAI, the same group which created ChatGPT. It can create original, realistic images and art from a text description. It can combine concepts, attributes, and styles.
Wonderful Music Video using DALL-E 2 AI image technology based on paintings from Grant Wood, Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth. Perfectly paced, the video playfully unveils the various AI paintings in an interesting collage which reflects the rhythm of the music and the messaging of the lyrics. Definitely worth watching more than once!
LOOOOP
Streaming only:
Animated Short without words by ANDREW LEE and TOM SHUM -Hong Kong - 2022 - 16 min.
LOOOOP is a simple but entertaining composite film with repeating segments, featuring a protagonist with integrated AI functions unable to change his fate. Or not?
After the daily routine work, you go back home as usual.
You wake up on another day, discover you are being trapped in a death loop, again and again....
Is it a game, a prank or, your faith?
It is a story about whether you dare to get out from the routine or not.
WINNER 1 AWARD - AI International Film Festival 4/2022:
BEST COMICAL SHOR