The Well

The Well is a five-and-a-half-minute AI-made crime and mystery short film from 2026, directed by the German duo Dorian Lebherz and Daniel Titz, who work as Dorian & Daniel. It was posted on their YouTube channel on 30 April 2026, where it can be watched free. Shortverse lists it as an English-language short from Canada, while the Filmmaker article places the pair in Germany.

Filmmaker magazine reports that the film took years to make and that the workflow changed with the tools. The pair began in the early platform ComfyUI and later moved to Kling 3.0 and Nano Banana to finish it; The Daring Creatives, which describes the same path, says the tools changed three times along the way. The duo also published a YouTube walkthrough, "How Dorian & Daniel Made The Well in ComfyUI and Kling".

Lebherz and Titz are a commercial directing duo whose portfolio, per Filmmaker, includes an award-winning spot for Samsung. They do not want to be pigeonholed as AI filmmakers, and Titz said their first feature will not be fully synthetic, keeping on-set work and using AI for visual effects.

Its YouTube upload had 1,565 views when read on 6 October 2026. Filmmaker's article, dated 12 August 2026, says the duo had recently uploaded it. Shortverse lists the film in a Directing Duo collection, and Curious Refuge's AI film gallery carries it.

On reception, Curious Refuge reports that The Well won Gold at the Runway AI Film Festival and the Metamorph Award for Best Storytelling, and The Daring Creatives says it won Gold at Runway's 2026 festival. Titz told Filmmaker that reactions split into two groups: people in the AI world who back the technology and innovation, and others who shut down once they learn a film is AI.