Synthetic Sincerity

The Synthetic Sincerity Lab based at the University of Southern England are trying to create authentic AI characters as part of a new research project. The head of the lab, Professor SonG, licences the films of Marc Isaacs' to better understand what his AI characters are lacking and, in turn, agrees the Filmmaker can document their working process.

Blending documentary with fiction, Synthetic Sincerity uses humour and innovative narrative techniques to form a reflection on what is happening to the human face in the era of AI and what this might mean for the future of cinema.

The film’s cast include: an AI character made in collaboration with Illinca Manolache (Don’t Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Radu Jude, 2023); Lynn, a rebellious and charismatic AI researcher from Beirut and Ablikim, a Uighur chef quietly (but painfully) dealing with his exile in London.

When the filmmaker goes rogue and starts filming the private lives of the lab researchers - and Lynn and her colleagues have transformed Ablikim into an AI able to tell the world about what he’s gone through - the university provost and his AI assistant decide to enact revenge.