Samir on new technologies in film
The first weeks of August always bring with them the Locarno Film Festival. In addition to the many films showing in the city's cinemas, the festival is also a meeting place for the industry and gives the opportunity to exchange ideas with filmmakers at national and international level. Samir talked to the festival magazine “Locarno Daily” about new technologies, AI in film and about «The Miraculous Transformation of the Working Class into Foreigners». You can read the article here!
I don't believe that there is a threat from artificial intelligence. It just means that there is an immense corpus of knowledge built up by humans and other humans made up software in order to get the best out of that. It is software built by humans: in a way, it's the same process that every artist went through in the past. Today it's just faster, you can see the result immediately. In that sense, I'm not afraid that artificial intelligence will change the idea of creativity profoundly. No, it's just accelerating again to create a mainstream product. Will it become more expensive? I'm now working with these tools, for the animation of my new doc, and it's affordable.
We now need a law that declares Al generated audio-visual products, which says: "this is made by artificial intelligence". It's necessary because humans believe so much with their eyes and ears. If the industry wants to keep going towards realism in movies, to make them look like documentaries, then it should be stated for truthfulness. If not, it becomes dangerous. I always watched popular mainstream movies which used modern technology. And now we have reached a level where any new movie looks like an old one in some way.
But again, it's like bourgeois art, it started in the early Renaissance, and it went on until the end of the 19th century. It reached such perfection in painting, it was breathtaking when people looked at themselves in a portrait. But in the early 20th century, painters turned their backs on realism, and photography came in. I believe there is a connection between that and the disruption that painters started to make with abstraction and other forms of expression. The same happened later with photography: the more photography became widespread and perfect, the more people started to become inattentive. Because it seems you've seen every possible angle. Especially our generation which grew up with at first with films, TV, newspapers and now lnstagram and TikTok. Now we will go onto the next step, which will be creating with these tools a form of disruption for our perception. For me this stuff is really interesting because I can switch from realistic description to fantasy.
But the core of the dilemma is always the same: if you decide to use disruptive technology in your storytelling, your story must be fascinating and captivating. Viewers follow you for the interesting content, not the effects. In my last documentary I used 3D technology in a new way. I wasn't interested in the depiction of reality in 3D in cinema. But rather to arrange the material in the black box of the cinema with different layers for the perception. To my surprise, normal film audiences didn't have any questions after the screenings on that aspect ... They weren't interested in the form. Only in the content, despite the new look of my film. It's nice to work on this new technology, but in the end it doesn't matter. Concerning new forms of movie reception through streaming, even when pay-tv and video cassettes came in, it was clear to me that cinema would exist forever, because it would become more and more like a promotion tool for all the other media. The best example of this is Netflix, who bought cinemas to support the premieres of their new products. It's obvious that people want to have fun together. It's human nature. And as social beings we can't exist without doing things together. So, I'm not afraid about the end of theaters. It is so obvious when you come to places like film festivals where people come together. I just came out from a theater here in Locarno: no one would have probably seen that movie on a streaming service or in mainstream theaters. But today the theater was sold out, and this is the magic of cinema.
Interview with Samir in the “Locarno Daily”
Cover of the “Locarno Daily” magazine