An Open Embrace of AI

You didn’t have to wait long to hear or learn about artificial intelligence (AI) at this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) — the topic was tackled at the opening press conference for festival jurors, and then kept raising its head at panels, no matter what the focus was really supposed to be.

SIFF itself embraced the phenomenon, with its AI Backlot initiative showcasing the technology’s uses via filmmaking projects that played out in front of festivalgoers in real time. You could learn first-hand what AI is all about, in terms of filmmaking, and then perhaps make your own decision about whether its impact is good or bad for the industry and for creativity in general.

There were varied opinions shared by those in the know — the “Cultural Value and Future Possibilities of Animation” panel’s reactions were of particular interest simply because animation is the industry that is either currently most under threat or that stands to benefit the most from AI. “Perhaps one day it will be omnipotent, a grand model,” said Yu Shui, director of the Chinese hit Nobody. “But it’s precisely because we are small models, imperfect, that we experience human emotions like joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness. The grand model has no desires, and therefore no emotions. Without emotions, there is no origin of art. Art, in essence, is born from human pain and joy.”

To the casual outside observer, it might seem that China is rushing headlong into the AI era — after all, the claim is the AI industry here is already worth around $174 billion — but it would be a mistake to think concerns aren’t shared across the globe. They were at the center of a fascinating debate between Enlight Media chairman Wang Changtian (Ne Zha 2) and philosopher Liu Qing at a session titled “When AI Learns to Create, What Grounds Cinema.” Wang explained how Enlight had explored AI but found it wanting — “It could just not meet our standards,” he said — and added that he had faith in human creativity. “Audiences respond to the most talented work, and the most talented people. If, in the future, we are all using AI, then the most talented people will also lead the way, it won’t be the AI leading the way.”

Backing the Newcomers

Saturday night’s Golden Goblet awards quickly turned into a celebration both of young filmmakers and of SIFF’s support for them down through the years, through its various production initiatives.

It was a brave choice by Tony Leung Chiu-wai and his jury to award the top prize to a first-timer in Zhong Kaifeng, with his debut feature Atlantic Rhapsody. But unearthing rising talent is what SIFF is all about — and a great insight into just how that actually works was provided by another first-timer in Gong Yiwen. Her debut feature Her First Taste — a wonderfully rich look at a young girl’s coming of age — won the top Asian New Talent prize, along with the Best Actress award for the impressive Ma Fufu in her first role.

Her First Taste came through the SIFF Project pre-production initiative and before the awards Gong revealed just how important that experience was, in terms of the mentors she pitched the production to giving her the courage to see her filmmaking dreams through to fruition. “I think my very personal stories touched some directors’ hearts and they give me very encouraging words,” said the director. “They said, maybe I should keep exploring this kind of personal style of film, and they really encouraged me to keep going.”

A Love of Cinema, Undimmed

Of course, Shanghai is mostly about the one thing that really matters — film fans. And this year’s edition rolled out an impressive line-up of around 420 movies from across the globe. Jury head Tony Leung Chiu-wai talked about the importance of educating young Chinese cinemagoers, of showing them a diverse selection of films — far beyond simple blockbusters — and thereby exciting them about cinema.

SIFF’s retrospectives always seem to do just that, and beneath all the doom and gloom about falling box office figures, or the threat of short-form dramas to movies, or how “kids today” have no attention span, we found a ray of hope for the future at a mid-afternoon screening of John Huston’s The Misfits from 1961, as Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe offer the world what were arguably their career-best performances, sadly so shortly before both stars died.

Once the credits ended, you could feel the audience inside the majestic Wanping Theater draw breath as one, and a 20-something attendee turned around and said, simply: “That was amazing.”