Hollywood has been cautiously getting its feet wet about the use of artificial intelligence in movies. But Cinequest, the 35-year-old Silicon Valley film and creativity festival, is jumping right into the AI pool.
Cinequest co-founder Halfdan Hussey announced Thursday that the fest was collaborating with the MIT AI Filmmaking Hackathon to screen eight shorts made using AI tools before the opening night film, “The Luckiest Man in America,” on March 11.
“Technology — as it meets the artists and audience — is very important to us. It speaks to our location, Silicon Valley, ground central of AI,” Hussey said. The shorts are each about 2 minutes long and were made around the theme “Dance in Life.”
Hussey joked that he could have had robots presenting the films, but he thought it was important to have the filmmakers there talk about their work with the new technology.
“AI does require the human interaction to make the film. It’s the tool, as we called it last year at our AI forum — a second brain, an augmentation, not a replacement,” he said. “This is what Hollywood is very afraid of. They always hate technologies. They’re disruptive, but they never replace the artist.”
Hussey also announced that Gillian Anderson, probably still best known to audiences for her role as Agent Dana Scully on “The X-Files,” will receive the Maverick Spirit Award. She’ll be in San Jose for the March 22 screening of “The Salt Path,” a drama directed by Marianne Elliott in which Anderson co-stars with Jason Isaacs.
“Having her here is a delightful opportunity,” Hussey said, noting that her sci-fi legacy will probably bring out some new fans of Cinequest.
And while Cinequest prides itself on embracing new technology, Hussey pointed out that the festival also takes time every year to pay homage to the artform’s origins with a silent film presentation. The big technology for this one is always the California’s Mighty Wurlitzer organ, with maestro Dennis James at the controls.
For this year, the Stanford Theatre Foundation made a fitting choice: “Nosferatu,” F.W. Murnau’s groundbreaking 1922 vampire film that had a remake hit theaters late last year.
“‘Nosferatu’ is very spooky. It’s powerful storytelling,” Hussey said. “These are the people who created film language as we know it.”
The lineup for this year’s fest, which has the theme “Luminate,” includes nearly 250 movies, with 110 U.S. and world premieres from 45 countries. It’ll also take place entirely in downtown San Jose at three venues: the California Theatre, 3Below Theaters and the Hammer Theater Center. Movies had also screened at the Showplace ICON theater in Mountain View the past couple of years, but that venue closed last year and will be taken over by Alamo Drafthouse this summer.
The closing film on March 23 is, “The Friend,” a dramedy starring Naomi Watts, Bill Murray and Constance Wu. No announcement was made about any of those stars or directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel being in attendance, but you never know. That screening will be followed by a festival wrap party at Blanco Urban and Farmer’s Union in San Pedro Square.
There is a quartet of documentaries on the schedule that should grab the interest of valley audiences: “A Little Fellow: The Legacy of A.P. Giannini,” about the life of the San Jose native who founded Bank of America; “The Dreamers and I,” which takes audiences inside a Silicon Valley “hacker house” and is directed by Bay Area cinematographer Kenji Yamamoto; “BAR,” Northern California filmmaker Don Hardy’s look at five bartenders taking part in a top-shelf mixology program at the Culinary Institute of America in New York City; and “American Agitators,” exploring the life of labor organizer Fred Ross who founded the Community Service Organization and helped inspire Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.
The full lineup — along with tickets and passes — will be available Feb. 1 at cinequest.org.