Seven Korean directors make generative-AI shorts for the Seoul Independent Film Festival

The 52nd Seoul Independent Film Festival has lined up seven established Korean directors to make a short film each with generative AI, and will show them in a strand called the AI Cinema Special. The programme was announced at a press conference on 4 November, ahead of a ten-day run from 25 November to 4 December at CGV Apgujeong and CGV Cheongdam Cine City in Seoul.

The idea is to put well-known filmmakers, rather than AI specialists, at the centre and let them widen the look of their films with the tools. They worked with commercially available generative models, picking ones that suited each film's subject and genre so they could judge what the technology does well and where it falls short. Kling AI, BytePlus, TapNow, MiniMax and ElevenLabs supplied technology. Several directors chose material that is expensive in live action, such as war settings and heavy visual effects, which AI let them attempt without large budgets.

“We believe that AI can serve as a meaningful assistant in the creative process rather than replace existing creators,”

Kim Dong-hyun, executive director of the Seoul Independent Film Festival, to Korea JoongAng Daily · koreajoongangdaily.com ↗

The shorts differ widely. Lee, director of Duelist and The Killers, made "I AM", an abstract piece inspired by Henri Barbusse's 1908 novel Hell and its view of human existence through voyeurism. Park Sin-woo, who made White Night, contributed Girl with a blade: happy day, in which a one-eyed hero and a one-armed hero fight monsters, each standing in as the other's missing eye or arm. Kim Da-min, recently noted for the Netflix series Dead-End Job, made Tapes and a Long-Lives Cat, in which a cat announces its own death through old camcorder footage.

Jang Cheol-soo's End of Species shows a dinosaur world collapsing after a meteorite impact. Ahn Sang-hoon's The Signal follows a rapper with auditory hallucinations whom a legendary musician and a hunchbacked old man pick to teach music to an extraterrestrial community. Shin Youn-shick's The Missing Liver reworks the folktale of the rabbit and the turtle, in which a rabbit travels to an underwater palace to fetch a liver that will cure the Dragon King. Jo Ba-reun's The Old Man and the Piano is a human drama about a young soldier and an old man who lost his son, who bond over an old piano on a snowy battlefield.

The special strand also takes in winners of an AI film competition run by the Korea Racing Authority and AI films from a training programme of the Korean Academy of Film Arts. A showcase of the seven directors' films, with talks on how they were made and how AI was used, is planned for 27 November at CGV Apgujeong in Gangnam.

Festival executive director Kim Dong-hyun said few films have so far been made entirely with AI, and that it is mostly being applied to post-production and music. He suggested that cost-cutting and the chance to visualise scripts may be bringing more films into being.

Around the AI strand, the festival is its usual size. It received a record 1,917 submissions, 1,715 shorts and 202 features, which is 112 more than last year, and it screens 129 new films, 86 shorts and 43 features. Opening night shows three love-themed shorts from the "SIFF x Byeon Woo-seok: Shorts on 2025" support project, all world premieres, with actor Kwon Hae-hyo hosting for the 26th time. Of 140 directors, 74 are women, the highest number in five years.

The festival is co-hosted by the Korean Film Council and the Korean Independent Film Association. The director Yeon Sang-ho has sponsored it since 2024, and Ryu Seung-wan set up an award for emerging directors in 2025. An Actor Project final is also scheduled for 30 November at CGV Cheongdam Cine City.