{"id":436002,"date":"2025-12-09T16:53:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T16:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/436002\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T16:53:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T16:53:18","slug":"how-ai-films-ahimsa-all-heart-qualified-for-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/436002\/","title":{"rendered":"How AI Films ‘Ahimsa’ & ‘All Heart’ Qualified For Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWelcome to\u00a0Rendering<\/a>, a Deadline column reporting at the intersection of\u00a0AI<\/a>\u00a0and showbiz. Rendering examines how\u00a0artificial intelligence<\/a>\u00a0is disrupting the entertainment industry, taking you inside key battlegrounds and spotlighting change makers wielding the technology for good and ill. Got a story about AI? Rendering wants to hear from you: jkanter@deadline.com.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis week: As Oscar voting gets underway, we speak to filmmakers who have proudly used generative AI in their pursuit of a gold statuette.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLook under the hood of the 2025 Oscar contenders, and you will find that AI greased the engines of certain movies. Whether it was voice-tweaking on The Brutalist and Emilia P\u00e9rez, or the blue eyes of Fremen in Dune: Part II, the technology was deployed and then (somewhat sheepishly) acknowledged during campaigning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe big difference in 2026 is qualifying films proudly using generative AI, possibly for the first time in Oscars<\/a> history. The technology is not just under the hood \u2013 in some cases, it is the car itself. This was no accident. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tweaked its rules in April<\/a> to make clear that the Oscar doors were open to artificial intelligence. \u201cThe tools neither help nor harm the chances of achieving a nomination,\u201d the organization said.<\/p>\n

\n\tIts proclamation came at a delicate moment in Hollywood\u2019s dance with AI. The technology is unavoidably growing in influence, but AI\u2019s adoption still repulses many auteurs who have triumphed at the Oscars (Guillermo del Toro<\/a> has literally been telling AI to go f**k itself in recent weeks).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOne person who took note of the Academy rule change was Craig Lew. A former Dreamworks animator, he saw an opportunity to \u201cmake some history\u201d by being among the first wave of AI-and-proud entries to the awards. <\/p>\n

\n\tHis short film, Ahimsa, qualified in the Animated Short Film category after Lew completed an Academy entry form, in which he explained that he used the likes of Runway and Google Veo to create his visuals, even though this transparency was not required. He chatted to Deadline\u2019s Rendering column to raise further awareness with voters.<\/p>\n

\n\tAhimsa tells an earnest story of how AI trained on meditating children heals a world ripped apart by the technology. At first glance, it could be dismissed by detractors as AI slop, but Lew says detailed human work has gone into the final cut. The director used motion capture to bring characters to life, animated AI backgrounds using his VFX skills, and turned to composer Dino Herrmann (Troy) to score the short.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt looks like AI because I\u2019m not trying to fool anyone,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re ushering in a new look. Does it belong in the Academy race? Yeah, it does. AI is a paintbrush. It\u2019s not the painter.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018All Heart\u2019 <\/p>\n

\n\tMichael Govier and Will McCormack, the Oscar-winning filmmakers behind 2026 Animated Short Film entry All Heart, echo Lew\u2019s sentiment, but with one key difference: they used a closed AI model, trained only on their artwork. The duo partnered with Asteria<\/a>, the AI studio co-founded by Poker Face star Natasha Lyonne, on All Heart, which follows a father who meets a man with a connection to his late daughter.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe created original artwork and hand-animated sequences the traditional way, and then we used AI in certain stages to explore visual possibilities, enhance textures, iterate on style, and accelerate look-development,\u201d they explain. \u201cAI didn\u2019t replace the artists, it amplifies them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother Animated Short Film qualifier also features bespoke AI. Mati Granica\u2019s Flower_Gan, which won a bronze medal at the Academy\u2019s student awards, used a custom-built generative adversarial network to create images of flowers, which he animated to create an anxiety-inducing polemic about the AI arms race.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tLucas Ansel, director of Oscar-qualified animation The 12 Inch Pianist, a joyful little comedy (in all senses) that uses traditional stop-motion, sees value in tailored AI being a step in a creative workflow. He is uncomfortable, however, with his film sitting alongside competitors using off-the-shelf generative AI platforms that opaquely scrape the internet. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any room for that,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re not creating singular, unique art.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile a new crop of Oscar contenders are proudly using AI, there is nuance in how they use AI. This distinction is likely to become increasingly important as the industry conversation matures around the technology. Transparency will allow Academy members to vote with their eyes open. That feels like a step in the right direction, even if some may be appalled at the qualification of generative AI movies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to\u00a0Rendering, a Deadline column reporting at the intersection of\u00a0AI\u00a0and showbiz. Rendering examines how\u00a0artificial intelligence\u00a0is disrupting the entertainment…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":436003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,11849,58203,15801,197137,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-436002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-asteria","11":"tag-guillermo-del-toro","12":"tag-oscars","13":"tag-rendering","14":"tag-technology","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}