Make Believe

Make Believe is a 13-minute-20-second AI-generated fantasy short film by Montlouis Mane, a Seattle-based studio that makes AI video for brands. The film was uploaded to YouTube on 15 September 2026 as a submission to the Higgsfield Global Film Festival 2026, and its project page on Higgsfield is marked complete and submitted on 14 September. The maker has not given a real name on the film's pages.

The director's statement calls the film a record of his own two-year journey learning to make films with generative AI, from first discovery through intimidation to wonder. He grew up making movies with his brother using action figures and a VHS camcorder, later became an actor, and says AI tools brought him back to something he loved as a kid.

The look was designed to feel hand-built and shot in 1990: rubber creatures, painted skies, miniatures under hard light, longer takes and rich backgrounds, in a warm 35mm look with grain and halation at 21:9. The statement says it is intentionally designed not to look computer-generated. The craft is meant to grow world by world, with the early worlds made with the simplest techniques and the later ones with everything learned.

The Higgsfield project page describes a solo production generated on Higgsfield. It names Seedance 2.5, Seedance 2.0 and Minimax H3 for video motion and performance, GPT Image 2.5 and 2.0, Seedream 5.0 Pro, Soul Cinema and Nano Banana Pro and 2 for reference and world-building stills, and Suno, Seed 1.0 and ElevenLabs for audio. The project lists 2,682 generations and 42,130 credits spent. It was planned at 7 to 8 minutes and ended at 13, and the story changed during generation because of content restrictions and the outputs.

The YouTube upload had about 231,000 views by 30 October 2026, with chapters from The Curiosity Shop and The Wrestling Ring to The Castle, The Pirate Ship, Candy World and The Starship. Its maker also posted a 36-second 1991 VHS-style trailer. Commenters compare it to E.T., Time Bandits and The NeverEnding Story.