{"id":35403,"date":"2025-08-31T22:59:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T22:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/35403\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T22:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T22:59:11","slug":"damien-hauser-on-ai-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/35403\/","title":{"rendered":"Damien Hauser on AI, Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMemory of Princess Mumbi<\/a> is the first Kenyan feature to celebrate its world premiere in the Giornate Degli Autori, or Venice Days<\/a>, the independent\u00a0parallel section of the Venice Film Festival. But the sci-fi romance mockumentary set in a futuristic Africa is the fourth feature from Swiss-Kenyan filmmaker Damien Hauser<\/a> (After the Long Rains, Blind Love), and the themes it explores are also a result of a journey of personal loss and mourning.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMemory of Princess Mumbi unfolds through \u2026 old behind-the-scenes footage, capturing how people find meaning in a tragic world and how even the smallest moments can hold profound beauty,\u201d a synopsis for the mostly improvised movie explains. \u201cIn 2094, aspiring director Kuve (Abraham Joseph) films a documentary on the Great War of the 2070s, which erased modern technology and revived kingdoms. Expecting to find despair in Umata, the heart of the war\u2019s aftermath, he instead discovers a village that has found peace. There, he meets Mumbi (Shandra Apondi), who shows him the beauty in everyday moments.\u201d Samson Waithaka plays a prince who promised to marry Mumbi, creating a love triangle.<\/p>\n

\n\tHauser is not only the writer and director of Mumbi, but also served as producer, cinematographer, and editor, and handled production design, costumes, and music. Oh yeah, he is also part of the cast.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe themes that Mumbi explores, finding meaning in a tragic world, loss, and memory, are no coincidence. \u201cI didn\u2019t do it fully on purpose, but the more the film came together, the more I realized that the story is directly connected with my brother\u2019s death\u201d at the age of 14 after an accident with a stolen motorcycle, Hauser tells THR. \u201cI wrote the outline shortly after he passed away. I just tried to write to distract myself. I could never have written something that is very tragic or very sad. So I tried to focus on those nice moments. And somehow the whole theme of the film became how we choose to remember somebody and, yes, also processing a loss by focusing on the beautiful memories instead of the whole tragic end of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHauser started making films when he was 7. \u201cI\u2019ve been shooting all my surroundings throughout,\u201d he shares. \u201cAnd so I had so many recordings of my brother. Those recordings helped me to remember those moments that were very insignificant, but those little moments that were very nice. I chose never to film him when we were fighting. So, all the footage that I have of him is footage of where we are having a good time together.\u201d In line with that, in Mumbi, we only hear narrations or AI-generated segments of tragic events.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDamien Hauser <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Venice Days<\/p>\n

\n\tHauser\u2019s use of AI in Mumbi also allowed him to explore what AI means<\/a> for the future of filmmaking in the process. \u201cI was generating a lot of AI images just for fun and to see what is possible,\u201d the filmmaker recalls. \u201cFor my last films, I have always done all my VFX, so when the whole AI thing came up, I instantly thought of matte painting, where you replace the background.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis technology interest and experimentation became another theme in the movie. \u201cAt the beginning, it was very random, but I tried to connect those themes, including why use AI and why it is a part of the whole story,\u201d Hauser explains. \u201cAnd for me, the reason lies in what I try to do with this film. I tried to make a film which AI couldn\u2019t do, because AI is always based on films that we already made and know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMumbi couldn\u2019t fully do without some classic film conventions, though. \u201cFilms are always about conflict and about the second act, which is very much about tension and conflict,\u201d the creative explains. \u201cBut with this film, I had this beautiful footage, which does not really have conflict. And I tried to make a film with just this footage, which didn\u2019t fully work because the first version was two hours long and very boring.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSo what did Hauser do? \u201cI had to push the conflict more, but I feel I came to a middle ground where I still have those insignificant moments, but it never gets boring, I hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of hope: Mumbi mentions war but provides amid tragedy, which feels like a timely message. \u201cKuve is more the person who believes in the tragic in the world and that people will always fight wars and that conflicts are a part of us,\u201d explains Hauser. \u201cAnd Mumbi believes that this might be true, but it really depends on how we view life and how we go through life, and by choosing to focus on those quiet moments, we can still have a beautiful life, even though our surroundings might be very rough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Memory of Princess Mumbi\u2019 <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Venice Days<\/p>\n

\n\tConcludes the filmmaker: \u201cI feel like war is always timely. Unfortunately. I guess what is different now is that we have access to information around the whole world, so we constantly know that there is a war somewhere, and how many people are dying, and people are suffering. My generation struggles with it. That\u2019s why I try to ask with this film: How do we deal with it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie\u2019s co-producers are\u00a0Kaleem Aftab<\/a>\u00a0and Apondi, with the support of Swiss Films and the\u00a0Red Sea Film Fund<\/a>. Paris-based Paradise City Sales is handling\u00a0international<\/a>\u00a0rights for the film, which world premieres in Venice on Monday, Sept. 1, before screening in Toronto\u2019s Centerpiece program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Memory of Princess Mumbi is the first Kenyan feature to celebrate its world premiere in the Giornate Degli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,27510,289,290,18,19,1452,17,82,21427,27511],"class_list":{"0":"post-35403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artifical-intelligence","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-international","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-venice-2025","18":"tag-venice-days"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}