The Mother's Monster, a fantasy short about a woman who gives birth to a dragon and then protects it, has drawn more than 53 million views on YouTube in about two weeks, Daily Beirut reports. The whole film was generated with artificial intelligence.
A dragon story like this would once have needed a major studio, large effects teams and a budget in the millions. It was made by Pakistani content creator Zahid Iqbal, who wrote, directed and supervised it through Zetomate, an AI-focused studio he founded. The report says he finished it in under 72 hours for no more than $2,000, well outside the studio system such a story once needed.
Most of the piece gathers reactions from Arab critics and filmmakers speaking to the news site 24. Critic Tarek Al-Shennawy called AI an undeniable part of cinema, said he had sat on a jury that gave prizes to AI works, and expects more of them at festivals, perhaps with an Oscar category of their own at the ceremony's centenary. He separated technical ability from human conscience, and likened the effect to hologram concerts of late singers such as Umm Kulthum, which he attends without fully connecting to. He added that he had come across articles written in his name by AI and did not recognise himself in them, finding none of the personal character that marks a writer.
Writer Mohamed Abd El-Rahman opened with a joke, asking why criticism should not be automated too if films are, before turning warier. He called the format an experiment whose future depends on audiences accepting it. Audiences bond with stars who have real lives off screen, he argued, which a synthetic performer cannot offer. He expects a phase of fascination followed by rules that confine AI to chases, explosions and hard-to-film scenes, and warned that without that balance films would start to feel like video games.
Screenwriter Nabil Harbi Al-Kathiri said the deeper change is in scripts, where AI can already draft ideas and full scenarios, store them and pitch them to writers and directors. Viewers may not tell such scripts from human work, he said, though professionals usually can. Mohamed Saadoun, who runs the Alexandria Short Film Festival, said Cannes and Venice are debating AI entries, and that judges should weigh the idea, the plot and the director's vision rather than conventional craft.
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