Pioneering Portuguese filmmaker Edgar Pêra introduced his latest work, Telepathic Letters [+lire aussi :
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interview : Edgar Pêra
fiche film], out of competition at the Locarno Film Festival. Cineuropa sat down with him to talk about the creative process behind blending the worlds of Fernando Pessoa and HP Lovecraft through generative AI, exploring the invisible connections between these two literary giants through the lens of AI, and surreal imagery. He also touched on the broader implications of artificial intelligence in the film industry.

Cineuropa: Why did you decide to create a form of correspondence between Fernando Pessoa and HP Lovecraft, especially since you've focused on these two figures in previous projects?
Edgar Pêra: They have so many invisible connections that I wanted to bring to light. The project isn't really about following a traditional format; it's more about how to represent very complex and oneiric universes on an extremely small budget. We had already experimented with this during a music video we made with The Legendary Tigerman. It’s amazing what you can create without a budget, even if it means metaphorically blowing up every town in the world. For fantasy and science fiction, this approach is fantastic. Everyone fears the unknown, and AI represents that unknown. It also ties into the fragmentation of personality, as AI can generate multiple layers and personas. This made it a great fit for exploring the connections between Pessoa and Lovecraft.

Did you work from a script, or was it more intuitive?
I had a libretto, which is what people might call a script, and it was pretty close to what the final product became. The challenge was to create surprising images and to keep surprising myself. Initially, the AI we used produced crude, VHS-like images, which worked for me because it added another layer of texture. Both Pessoa and Lovecraft specialised in creating myths, often from non-existent sources, so this blending of reality and fiction was a perfect fit.

How did you go about generating the prompts for the AI? Were they spontaneous, or did you draw on existing works?
It was a bit of both. I was obsessed with training the algorithm, creating hundreds of images daily. At one point, I could type "a man", and Fernando Pessoa would appear because the algorithm had been trained on so many images of him. I even had to work hard to make a stereotypical image of a woman disappear from the algorithm. The prompts were often surreal and aimed at creating a specific impression for the viewer.

Why did you choose to use generative AI for the avatars instead of deepfakes?
The AI application we used often operates in a sort of "hallucinating mode", and that’s exactly what I wanted to retain. When the images started to look too realistic, I lost interest. I was drawn to the strange, imperfect qualities – like characters with six fingers – because they added an element of the surreal. It's those imperfections that make the AI-generated content fascinating to me.

You were deliberately seeking out these hallucinations?
Exactly. It reminded me of the early days of cinema, where everything was new and uncharted. There was no set trend, just a wide-open field to explore. That’s how I feel about using AI right now. The imperfections are what make it exciting, but as the technology advances, it’s becoming more and more "perfect" and aligned with our preconceived ideas of reality. There are more data feeding into the algorithms, making the outputs more predictable and less interesting.

There's a "doom factor" in both AI and Lovecraft’s work. Do you see a connection there?
Definitely. Lovecraft’s idea of alien gods that are indifferent to humanity mirrors the way AI can be seen – these detached, almost god-like entities observing us. The sense of impending doom in Lovecraft’s stories is similar to the anxieties people have about AI and its impact on our future. It’s this eerie detachment and lack of control that make both so unsettling.

But what about the idea that AI could eventually replace human creators?
That’s a concern, but it’s not just about AI. The industry had been pushing us towards uniformity long before AI came into the picture. Even now, there are writers and directors who work like machines, churning out formulaic content designed to maximise profits. AI is just another step in this direction, this trend toward homogenisation. The real issue is the industry's drive to eliminate creativity and differentiation, not AI itself. The industry wants us all to create the same type of content, to follow the same algorithms for success. AI is just another tool in this process, but the problem began long before AI was a factor. If we’re not careful, we’ll all be trapped in this cycle of mediocrity, where creativity is sacrificed for profit.