Cannes: Kore-eda will fight so that a human always intervenes “in the making of films”

Hirokazu Kore-eda, grand master of Japanese cinema and 2018 Palme d’Or, will fight “until the end” for a human to intervene “at each stage of making a film”said Sunday May 17 in Cannes where his new film Sheep in The Box is in competition.

“I am well aware that the acting profession is threatened by artificial intelligence (…). For my part, I try very hard to favor the very artisanal aspect of things and I will defend to the end the fact that a human being must intervene at each stage of the making of a film”declared the director in an interview with AFP and translated by an interpreter.

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Already selected eight times in competition at Cannes, Kore-eda recognizes that he is “very tempting” to use AI for questions of productivity but also defends a human creation process, slower and uncertain. “This work must be preserved at all costs”he believes. “This time could be considered wasted time, hesitating, asking questions, procrastinating, but we need it to think about ourselves, to position ourselves”.

Kore-eda questions AI and grief

The filmmaker also says he is divided on the potential use of AI to alleviate the pain of bereaved families, the theme at the heart of his new film Sheep in the Box where parents welcome an android similar in every way to their missing child. “It worries me and at the same time I understand the desire that some people may have to find their dead”he said. “Myself, when I lost my parents, I regretted not having been able to say a last word to them, so I can understand that we can want to reconnect or share time with our dead”.

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This technology is still in development but, if it comes to fruition, it would open up new questions about our relationship with the deceased, according to the filmmaker. “I wonder if we will not then have to ask ourselves the question of the rights of deceased people and our right, we living, to take possession of the memory and the memories of the personality of the people who were with us”.

Here again, the filmmaker pleads for a human approach. “We must ask ourselves how we ourselves can maintain this relationship with the dead as human beings, not by depending on something but perhaps by finding these resources within ourselves”.