At the Marrakech Film Festival, three major voices in global cinema, Jenna Ortega, Bong Joon Ho, and Celine Song, voiced sharply different anxieties about the expanding influence of artificial intelligence on filmmaking, each urging a return to the irreplaceable imperfections of human creativity.
Celine Song, director of Past Lives, spoke passionately about what she sees as AI’s quiet colonisation of artistic instinct. Citing Guillermo del Toro’s recent vow to keep the technology out of his work, she said AI has begun reshaping “the way we encounter images and sound” in ways that trouble her deeply. For Song, no algorithm can match the lived experience a cinematographer brings to a frame. “When I collaborate with my cinematographer, I’m engaging with his entire life, his failures, his struggles, and his way of seeing,” she said. “You can’t feed that into a system and expect the same image to come out.”
Jenna Ortega echoed that sentiment with her own pointed critique. The Wednesday star reflected on how easily humanity pushes technology beyond its limits. She admitted feeling uneasy in what she described as a moment of “deep uncertainty”, warning that AI risks stripping art of the flaws that make it human. “A computer has no soul,” she said, hoping audiences will eventually tire of AI-generated content the way one gets sick of “mental junk food.” Ortega imagines a future where a small, personal film, crafted far from machines, might reignite the excitement of authentic storytelling.
Meanwhile, Parasite filmmaker Bong Joon Ho delivered the conversation’s most contrasting perspective, acknowledging that AI could force society to finally confront what tasks only humans can perform. Yet he quickly undercut his own optimism with dark humour, saying he still feels an urge to “organise a military squad” with the sole objective of wiping out the technology. While he recognises its potential, Bong fears the toll it could take on artists if left unchecked.