Artificial Intelligence Shares the Stars at Sundance Festival

The Sundance Independent Film Festival kicks off Thursday at United States, for an edition where the emergence of artificial intelligence, addressed by several filmmakers, will share the spotlight with stars like Kristen Stewart and Pedro Pascal.

Co-founded by actor Robert Redford, this event is held until January 28 in the mountains of Utah (west), at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters. It is an essential launch platform for many independent films and documentaries, in search of broadcasters.

Among the 90 productions selected this year, the upheavals linked to AI occupy a prominent place, just a few months after having largely contributed to the strikes that paralyzed Hollywood, where actors and screenwriters feared being replaced by robots.

The documentary “Love Machina” for example follows the efforts of a couple to perpetuate beyond their death the love that binds them, by transferring their consciousness to a humanoid.

Its director Peter Sillen considers himself “lucky” that the completion of this project, started in 2017, coincides with “the public awareness of AI”, propelled to the forefront by the advances in conversational robots like ChatGPT.

Another documentary, “Eternal You” delves into the opaque and flourishing world of start-ups that are tackling the bereavement market, by offering to converse with avatars capable of mimicking a deceased loved one thanks to an AI based on their memories.

On the fiction side, former “Twilight” star Kristen Stewart is starring in “two of the most talked about films at the festival,” warns programming director Kim Yutani.

In “Love Lies Bleeding,” the actress plays a gym manager who falls for a bisexual bodybuilder. A love story put to the test by a series of violent events.

She also stars in “Love Me,” a film mysteriously presented as an online romance between “a buoy and a satellite” in a post-human world.

On Thursday night, the festival will open with a screening of “Freaky Tales,” starring actor Pedro Pascal in a series of stories set on the same day in 1987. A tale that intertwines teenage punks, skinheads, a rap battle and a basketball star.

Another highly anticipated film, the comedy “Thelma,” features a grandmother caught up in an action romp, in a third-age version of the “Mission Impossible” series.

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“I hope we get distributed by someone who will let us appear in theaters first, and then on streaming,” said lead actress June Squibb, 93.

Sundance darlings, Directors Steven Soderbergh and Richard Linklater come to defend their latest projects. The former signs “Presence”, a frightening thriller with Lucy Liu in a haunted suburban house, while the latter offers a portrait of his hometown in the documentary series “God Save Texas”.

In addition to artificial intelligence, documentaries this year again deal with very diverse themes, ranging from the late emergence of the #MeToo movement in Japan to the future of American democracy.

“War Game” follows an exercise between high-ranking intelligence officers and American politicians, who submit to a role-playing game to imagine how they would manage a coup d'état after a contested presidential election.

In the middle of an election year, “it is certainly disturbing to know that games can be very close to reality,” said the festival's new director, Eugene Hernandez.

Another chronicle of American society, “Will & Harper” follows the coming out of a transgender woman who travels through the country.

Finally, Japanese journalist Shiori Ito, a leading figure in the movement that helped reform the Japanese Penal Code to broaden the definition of rape, offers “Black Box Diaries.” A diary that recounts her accusations of rape against a TV channel manager, and her fight against misogyny to improve the handling of sexual violence by the justice system.

“I don't know what to expect, but it's America, so I hope I can meet people who will also share their experiences,” she confided before the broadcast of her documentary, scheduled for Saturday.

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