The world's first full-length AI-generated movie, “Hell Grind” has officially premiered at the Cannes Film Festival,El.kz reports.
95-minute movie was created by the San Francisco-based startup Higgsfield AI, co-founded by Kazakhstani entrepreneur Yerzat Dulat. It was directed by Aitore Zholdaskali, known for the Kazakh horror film Auru, and co-written by Adilkhkan Yerzhanov, whose previous works have been featured in the official Cannes program.
A festival representative confirmed that Hell Grind was not part of the official selection but was instead part of the Marché du Film, an industry event where slots can simply be purchased.
From series to feature
The first episode of Hell Grind appeared on YouTube a month before Cannes under the title "World's First AI Series." This 22-minute pilot covers the same story of four thieves, a portal, and the underworld. The series is produced by
Higgsfield as part of their new streaming platform for original AI content.
How it was made
A team of 15 people including directors, cinematographers, and editors created the film in just 14 days. The budget was $500,000, with $400,000 spent on cloud server computing power. For comparison, traditional production of a similar blockbuster would cost approximately $50 million.
Every 15 seconds of video was generated using text prompts. The average prompt contained about 3,000 words. For the first 25 minutes of the film alone, 16,181 video clips were generated, from which 253 scenes were selected for the final cut. The rejection ratio was 64 to 1.
The Future of cinema
The reaction to AI cinematography in Cannes was polarized. After viewing, Guillermo del Toro (director of Pan's Labyrinth) gave a brief and profane response. Festival artistic director Thierry Frémaux called the statement "the first political manifesto of this year."
In contrast, Chuck Russell, director of The Mask, praised the film. "You made me truly empathize with the characters that is almost never found in AI works," he told the creators.
