“Disquiet on the set!” Italian producer unveils first AI-directed feature film amid industry pushback

Italian producer Andrea Iervolino has unveiled The Sweet Idleness, what he claims is the first feature film directed by an artificial intelligence system called FellinAI. The project arrives amid intensifying industry debate over AI’s role in filmmaking, particularly following recent controversy surrounding AI actress Tilly Norwood’s potential talent agency representation.

What you should know: FellinAI operates as a virtual director designed to “celebrate the poetic and dreamlike language of great European cinema.”

• The AI system is housed at Andrea Iervolino Company AI, with Iervolino serving as the “human-in-the-loop” supervisor and producer who guides and monitors the technology.
• The Sweet Idleness imagines a dystopian future where only 1% of humanity still works, transforming labor into a symbolic ritual while machines provide freedom and leisure for the rest of the population.
• The film’s cast comes from Iervolino’s Actor+, an in-house agency that creates digital likenesses of real actors for FellinAI to direct.

The big picture: This AI director debut coincides with heated industry discussions about synthetic performers replacing human talent.

• SAG-AFTRA, the union representing screen actors and media professionals, recently opposed AI actress Tilly Norwood’s potential representation, stating that creativity “is, and should remain, human-centered.”
• The guild emphasized that AI characters are “generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers – without permission or compensation.”

What they’re saying: Iervolino positioned his project as expanding rather than replacing traditional filmmaking.

• “This is not designed to replace traditional cinema,” Iervolino said, adding that he remains committed to conventional filmmaking.
• His stated goal is to “unite human sensitivity with the creative power of artificial intelligence in order to tell stories that no one has ever imagined before.”
• SAG-AFTRA warned that synthetic performers have “no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we’ve seen, audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience.”

Key details: The producer’s credits include Ferrari and To The Bone, lending established industry credibility to the experimental project.

• No release date has been announced for The Sweet Idleness.
• A teaser trailer is available for viewing, though specific audience reception data wasn’t provided.