Google Screens 11 AI Short Films at Metrograph
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- Google hosted its fourth "Flow Sessions" cohort screening at Manhattan's Metrograph theater, featuring 11 AI-generated short films made with its Flow short-form video generator during a six-week intensive
- Flow Sessions filmmaker-in-residence Henry Daubrez shepherds each cohort from concept to generated reality, telling Variety AI opens storytelling to people without professional creative backgrounds
- Google's broader filmmaker push includes a DeepMind research partnership with A24 and work with directors Darren Aronofsky and Doug Liman
- Metrograph replaced Tribeca's Roxy Cinema as the screening venue, a move aimed at cinephile audiences; the hourlong session spanned films from Dion Lee's personal essay "Two Chairs" to Daniel Garcia's Times Square horror short "Mascot"
- Daniel Garcia said "seeing is not believing anymore" after using AI to generate behind-the-scenes footage for "Mascot" that looked like real production stills, calling the move a deliberate provocation about how films are made
- Dion Lee, who starred in her own short "Two Chairs," said she'd use AI for future projects but doesn't believe the tool "needs to be forced" on skeptics
Why it matters: Google is courting creative-industry adoption of its AI video tools at a moment when studios and unions are still fighting over copyrighted training data — if even one Flow Sessions filmmaker keeps producing with the tool, Google gains a credibility foothold in Hollywood that rivals like OpenAI's Sora haven't secured. The program also spotlights a reality-erasure problem: director Daniel Garcia's AI-fabricated behind-the-scenes shots illustrate how generative video can make viewers doubt whether any production still is real.
