Italian Producer makes A.I. Directed Movie
TORONTO – In 2023, Hollywood Screenwriters fought a five-month, 148-day strike to combat the imminent threat of generative A.I. tools. And while they were also negotiating out new streaming-era economics, the overwhelming priority for writers was to secure significant guardrails against the use of artificial intelligence.
The actor’s union (SAG-AFTRA) followed suit with a strike of their own against the rising threat of A.I. replacement. Two years later, Italian Producer Andrea Iervolino believes he’s found a way to “empower filmmakers” while integrating A.I.
The Sweet Idleness is Iervolino’s new film, made entirely by his company’s A.I. tool, which he calls “FellinAI”. The A.I. infrastructure is kept in house at the Andrea Iervolino Company AI, an artificial intelligence arm of The Andrea Iervolino Company. Put simply, it’s a film made by a computer. Yet Iervolino disputes the charge, with himself acting as what he calls a “human-in-the-loop,” a supervisor and producer who commandeers the technology.
As for the plot, the A.I. made film – The Sweet Idleness – “imagines a futuristic world in which only 1% of humanity still works, while the rest of the population lives in freedom”, as per the IMDb synopsis.
The film calls the “last workers” the “final masks of a humanity that resist the insolence of labor”. It’s unclear from the trailer whether the film’s message is a full-on embrace or forewarning of artificial intelligence, but Iervolino’s statements are unambiguous.
The Italian Producer says that he wants to “combine human sensitivity with the creative power of artificial intelligence to tell stories no one has ever imagined before. FellinAI is a director who never sleeps, while Actor+ is a company of actors who live beyond the screen. It is the future, but also a return to the original poetry of cinema”, says Iervolino.
The “Actor+ company of actors” that Iervolino refers is an in-house agency of his company that works with human actors and performers who have legally consented and agreed to the digital re-imagining of their faces, physicality and personality.
But their consent doesn’t end on-screen. According to the Italian Producer, the A.I. generated cast will also be used to promote the film through their own social media platforms.
Iervolino has been producing films for a decade now, having built a mini empire in the process. His rise to prominence included his years partnering with Monika Bacardi, the heiress of the Bacardi rum fortune.
But with their recent split, it remains to be seen whether Iervolino’s latest project is pioneering ingenuity or if it’s simply a mask of its own – subbing in for a thinning production slate.
Images Courtesy of the Andrea Iervolino Company
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
