Throughout the history of cinema, filmmakers have challenged the belief that documentary footage is an accurate imprint of reality. This programme explores why and how documentary filmmakers investigated the prompt of reality long before the advent of AI.
October 19 at 7:00 PM, Marble Hall, Rodina Cinema Centre — “Why Do We Hate AI in Cinema?”
Generative video is either a very recent phenomenon or one that has been around for quite some time. The first commercial models date back to 2022–2023; before that, creating moving images from datasets, code, and prompts was the domain of geeks and artists. At first glance, it seems an astonishing new tool that, in its ultimate form, could enable anyone to make a full-length film single-handedly, without expensive sets or a complex production team. For the first time in human history, each of us can recreate our dreams and show them to someone else.
And yet cinema audiences, cinephiles in particular, have largely failed to embrace this new type of imagery. Studios that actively use the technology in supporting processes have to conceal its use to avoid angering their audiences. Why is this happening?
The first and foremost objection — the blurring of reality — is always at the forefront, but it often seems somewhat disingenuous. Images on screen have never been a direct representation of reality. Even documentary cinema rests on an unspoken convention in which viewers accept the filmmaker’s intent and intervention in the source material as “raw truth.” There are now many times more fabricated images, but there are also simply many more images of every kind. Meanwhile, the collective consciousness often continues to treat simulations from the pre-digital era as historical fact. Many of you reading these lines may be convinced that you have seen the execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu — a subject Chris Marker explores in An Imprecise History of the Ceaușescu Affair. In fact, the shots themselves were never captured on camera; the familiar footage of the couple collapsing comes from the feature film Point Zero (1996).
The second objection is aesthetic. The previous major technological incursion into cinema came in the form of computer-generated special effects. They, too, challenged our sense of reality, but arrived in the shape of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), a film whose CGI has not aged even thirty-five years later. Generative video, by contrast, flooded social media with streams of AI slop. Here lies the paradox of a groundbreaking technology becoming widely accessible: a new generation of creators will now have to work hard to prove its artistic merit.
Today, while the technology is still evolving and model features are updated almost weekly, keeping enthusiasts in a state of perpetual testing, artists and filmmakers are cautiously approaching it from different angles, gradually incorporating its mechanics and aesthetics into the language of cinema.
Liza Zenkova opens her Illusion of Reality with a witty device: she simulates AI generation using objects from the real world.
In The Most Beautiful Man on Earth, Paolo Baiguerra employs a form of AI slop popular on social media — using AI to animate old photographs and tell the story of his uncle, whose fate remained a family taboo for decades. Filmmakers around the world are using generative AI to create establishing shots, replace additional filming, and, particularly extensively, assist with post-production.
One way or another, generative imagery is making its way into cinema, prompting us to question the nature of impossible AI-generated images and their impact on our perception. Will we be able to embrace and accept this incursion into cinema’s sacred space?
The discussion brings together film critic Maria Kuvshinova, author of The New Contract: Cinema and the Viewer After AI; Elizaveta Zenkova, director of Illusion of Reality; Fyodor Maksimishin (joining online); and other participants in the festival programme.
Maria Kuvshinova
Moderator: Maria Kuvshinova, Russian journalist and film critic.
Discussion participants:
- Elizaveta Zenkova, documentary filmmaker.
- Fyodor Maksimishin, film historian and experimental filmmaker.