Piotr Winiewicz’s debut feature is anything but simple: About a Hero [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] is adapted from a script written by a specially trained AI model named Kaspar (after Werner Herzog’s protagonist Kaspar Hauser) that was fed all of the works made, and all of the words written and spoken, by the German filmmaker. In the lead-up to the film’s IDFA premiere as the opening film, Winiewicz sat down with Cineuropa to discuss why About a Hero should not be branded as the “AI Herzog film”, even if it features both AI and Werner Herzog.

Cineuropa: You started working on Kaspar in 2018. Did the technological advancements and their rapid pace in the last six years help with the making of About a Hero?
Piotr Winiewicz: Yes, it’s been moving so fast, especially in the past two or three years. On one hand, it was annoying because people kept saying that now was the time to release the film, but [with every new advancement], it didn’t seem like it was going to stick. Quite early on, we also decided that there was no point in running after technology, as it wasn’t about AI [as much as it was] about technophobia: that was the focus of the film.

How did this decision affect the rest of the film?
From this, certain aesthetics followed; I would rather go back in time to the early internet of things, and the relationship to AI was not about the process of making the film, so the focus is less on the tools [we used]. I don’t think we’re endorsing it. You could compare the way people reacted to [the advent of] the printing press or to photography and similar technological inventions. I think people have always been scared and worried. I’m not that interested in technology, personally. But yes, there were frustrating moments, but then the blessing also came with that.

How would you describe the process of making the film, particularly the transition from script to shooting?
By the time we started shooting, people had been suggesting that we should do a “making of” documentary, to capture all of the layers in adapting the script. But you know, the making-of was not that intriguing. As with every shoot, it was a lot of fun, but since it was quite a conventional way of shooting, [I kept asking myself:] “What was different from regular sets?” Perhaps the fact that there were so many discussions happening and that everybody had an opinion about [AI]. And I mean everybody: from the actors to the cinematographer and the runners – everybody just had an opinion. So that was constantly informing the film.

Werner Herzog is the epitome of Romanticism itself. He’s present in the film, even if not physically, but did you feel his spirit, presence or influence in any other way during the shoot?
It was definitely part of the discussion, especially regarding how things are phrased. It was never our intention to make a “Herzog” film, because nobody can. If you call About a Hero “the Herzog AI film”, you’re mistaken: it’s not about Herzog, and it’s not about AI. Herzog is not a subject, but an object in the film. I think it made so much sense that it was him because he has a distinctive voice, a distinct vocabulary and, of course, an extensive filmography. His is a voice that we trust. So, what happens if, all of a sudden, this voice is not trustworthy any more? That's something we experience everywhere now. Secondly, the discussions about his works, too, were there early on. For our film, aesthetics were very important, in order to bind together the fictional narrative and documentary narrative, as well as the nightmarish last part. I, myself, as a trained scenographer, take visuals very seriously, but Herzog’s films don’t share commonalities thanks to their cinematography. I remember Werner saying that he’s anti-aesthetics – like if he sees a beautiful sunrise, he’ll turn the camera away from it.

On the contrary, About a Hero looks aestheticised and heavily stylised. How did you achieve this look?
The aesthetics were as crucial as finding the language, so we were carefully crafting the set. It was important that there would be something artificial about the look, but I was not interested in using AI-generated images. The inspiration was [German photographer] Thomas Demand, who uses paper models. We wanted to achieve an artificial quality: there are no natural patterns; everything you see is square and disturbingly clean. And it’s funny that when we were shooting, I didn’t know how much the video generation quality would improve in the meantime. Now, people see the film and say they think that things are generated, that they can’t always tell whether the images are real or not, which I think gives the film another layer [of artificiality].