The Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) has introduced an AI-focused program for the first time, creating a space to discuss AI integration into filmmaking in addition to showcasing acclaimed films from around the world.

The festival, now in its 28th year, runs from June 12 to 21. It is China’s only film festival to receive accreditation by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations. 

Its new section, “AI Studio,” was jointly launched by SIFF and Hailuo AI, a content-generation platform under Shanghai-based tech company MiniMax. Beginning May 13, it invited both traditional filmmakers and AI creators to participate in a monthlong collaboration exploring the integration of AI and film.

From a pool of roughly 500 applications from around the world, just 22 were selected and divided into four teams, pairing filmmakers with AI-generated content (AIGC) creators.

During the program, participants were required to create a video longer than five minutes and to record their work log, raw materials, and the creation process. A corresponding academic team composed of renowned film directors, producers, and film professors observed and evaluated the teams’ work and processes.

The program culminated in a two-day event, June 14 to 15, in which each team was tasked with creating an AI-generated video on site within six hours.

One team, assigned to create “a story about a film fan,” took inspiration from the festival’s ticket stubs, which this year are designed as collectible puzzle pieces. They created a 103-second short film about how a single movie ticket rekindles the protagonist’s lifelong passion for cinema, following them from childhood to old age.

The event also featured panel discussions between participants and industry experts.

Huang Lei, a director and a recipient of SIFF nominations in previous years, said that using AI during the event had changed his perspective on filmmaking.

“AI has its own technical barriers and underlying logic. The simplest approach is to accept it and understand it,” Huang said. “There is no absolute good or bad. The key is how you use it.”

Experts attending the event also highlighted the importance of traditional filmmaking. “A true AI studio is not simply about typing a sentence and getting a video,” Sun Bin, deputy dean of the School of Theater, Film and Television at the Communication University of China, said, adding that though AI has made some tasks faster, it has not made creativity simpler. 

Sun said that AI-assisted filmmaking still involves a wide range of tasks, including “script writing, fact-checking, building character and scene … and maintaining character continuity.”

Tong Ying, deputy director of the Shanghai International Film and TV Festival Center, said that the goal of the festival’s AI Studio is “to create an industry case study that can be observed, discussed, and preserved, providing a real-world reference for understanding, using, and evaluating AI in filmmaking.”

Huang Jianxin, a film director and dean of the School of Film at Xiamen University, also in attendance at the event, predicted that the structure of cinema itself could change.

“AI already surpasses live-action filmmaking in depicting legends, myths, and supernatural subjects,” he said. “Could there eventually be a genre called AI cinema, with its own distinct aesthetic system?”

Editor: Marianne Gunnarsson.

(Header image: A promotional image for the Shanghai International Film Festival’s AI Studio. From Weibo)