CGV AI film contest showcases amateur filmmakers breaking ground
Theater chain's inaugural contest demonstrates how artificial intelligence tools lower creative barriers for newcomers
Mutiplex chain CGV's AI-generated film contest concluded Friday with an awards ceremony at CGV Yongsan in Seoul, showcasing how AI tools can enable creators to create sophisticated cinematic works previously beyond their reach.
The theater chain's inaugural event drew submissions from amateur and first-time filmmakers who leveraged generative AI to produce short films that would have previously required massive budgets.
"The Wrong Visitor" by Hyun Hae-ri claimed the grand prize among five winners selected from 15 finalists.
"I think AI filmmaking isn't 'film by AI' but 'film with AI,'" Hyun said in her acceptance speech. Her 11-minute short film centers on a character with a wolf's head and the body of a human who guides fellow animals through death.
The contest particularly highlighted AI's democratizing potential through entries like "Galaxy Cat Express," which earned third place alongside a college student's production, "Pinocchio: Begins."
Kim Young-hyun, creator of "Galaxy Cat Express," quit his previous job to pursue filmmaking after AI tools became available. "I used to dream about making those imaginative stories I loved watching as a kid with my parents — 'Terminator' and 'Predator,'" Kim said during his acceptance speech. "When AI tech started developing, I thought 'I can actually do this now' and quit my job to give it a shot."
College students from Sogang and Yonsei universities created "Pinocchio: Begins," a cyberpunk reimagining featuring an android programmed to eliminate liars.
Screenwriter Kang Da-bin, in accepting the award on behalf of director Ahn Ye-eun, highlighted their amateur status: "We weren't film experts or AI specialists, but we pulled all-nighters and made this movie with just 200,000 won ($145) in our hands. We hope this shows other young people that you can make it happen."
The panel of judges included "Concrete Utopia" director Um Tae-hwa, author Kim Jung-hyuk, science YouTuber Kim Jae-hyeok and CJ ENM's AI production director Jung Chang-ik. Evaluation criteria weighted storytelling at 40 percent, creativity at 30 percent and technical execution at 30 percent.
The screened works proved AI excels at generating convincing imagery for wild concepts — from the half-human, half-animal characters with intricate fur textures in "The Wrong Visitor" and the dark cyberpunk cityscapes of second-place winner "0KB," to the sweeping galactic vistas with floating spaceships in "Galaxy Cat Express." These sequences would typically require expensive video effects teams to create, but AI has enabled solo creators to achieve comparable results on minimal budgets.
It may be one thing to create high-concept short videos resembling on-demand commercials, but it is quite another to craft coherent narrative films, however short. The technology's limitations showed clearly in the editing, where constant hard cuts between scenes prevented narratives from gaining momentum. Visual consistency also proved problematic, with characters' facial features and physical detail shifting between shots, resulting in jarring discontinuities.
Notably, most entries relied heavily on English dialogue, suggesting AI's translation capabilities may help creators overcome language barriers.
For now, the technology appears positioned to complement rather than replace human creativity — potentially threatening video effects roles while helping screenwriters and directors expand their creative possibilities.
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