Interview by Benjamin Poole
You open with Bergman's quote "film begins with the human face." What does that line mean to you in 2026, when faces can be generated, manipulated, or even performed by avatars?
I think we are yet to really understand fully what this means for cinema but what is true I think is that AI will never be able to create the level of complexity and depth of the human face. All of the experiences that make us human show on our faces and our subconscious thoughts and feelings are expressed there without us even realising it. AI has no soul and therefore can only ever be an empty copy.
Who is your favourite "face actor" (I was recently impressed with the contortions and smiles of Inde Navarrette in Obsession)?
A face I have never forgotten since I first encountered it is Franco Citti in Pasolini's Accattone. It contains all the sadness, arrogance, fragility all at once. Beautiful.
In the film, AI is framed as both absurd and unsettling. Do you see it as a genuine threat to documentary truth, or more as a catalyst for rethinking how we tell stories?
In terms of non fiction film, I don't really believe in any simple notion of documentary truth anyway so in this sense I'm not worried about it but, on the other hand, I am concerned about the erasure on screens of the lives of so called "ordinary" people. I am excited by new ways of telling stories, of mixing fiction with nonfiction and playing with the form of films because so many are formulaic and only interested in story whereas I think cinema has so much potential to move us in a multitude of ways outside of traditional narrative forms. I watched Dry Leaf - a Georgian film - recently and it was totally refreshing. A work made on a 2008 Sony Erickson phone but felt totally new. If AI is used interestingly and not just as a cheap alternative - then great filmmakers will do great things with it but not just for the sake of...
You appear in the film as a version of yourself. What does that self‑insertion allow you to interrogate about authorship and control?
Well, I am in the film because it was the best way of imagining and creating the premise of the film and once I give my films to the lab I can then raise all the questions that I was interested in and find the right way of expressing them in the work. Authorship is disappearing from filmmaking fast as big tech and the corporates take over the industry and so it felt very important to put this in the work and then to raise the question of how the powerful institutions use it to maintain their status and interests.
The AI avatar guides you through the process like a digital Sibyl of Cumae. What does this relationship evoke? As the avatar, Ilinca Manolache's ethereal beauty is further stylised within the film's context. What does this character communicate about AI aesthetics?
This is a good question. I started out with an Avatar that I found on an AI website but it became very boring to work with, very flat and monotone - of course. Then I met Ilinca in Romania when she turned up at some screenings of my films. I had already seen her in Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World.
Your films often blur truth and performance. What does such narrative chicanery allow you to explore that straight documentary cannot?
Since my very first film Lift in 2001, I have always felt the limitations of straight documentary and it is only by going beyond that the film(s) start to come to life in unexpected and joyful ways. It's the going beyond and the what-if questions that really excite me and provide the fuel for the whole endeavour, because this is where the innovation lies. But I must keep something of the real in there in some form or another. More now than ever we need this going beyond because reality is not enough and of course often a performance in itself.
The Beirut footage sternly juxtaposes the film's otherwise playful tone. What were you aiming to expose by placing geopolitical violence next to synthetic storytelling?
It came into the film out of the desire to get close to the real lives of these characters and when Lynn was telling me about her life - it was impossible to leave out. This reality felt compelling especially in the context of the theme of AI and I love how it makes us think about AI and warfare too - hopefully.
After making Synthetic Sincerity, what do you think AI will never be able to replicate about human experience?
The human experience, the unspoken, the "soul," the real pain that Kelly contains or the pain on the face of Lynn's Grandmother.
If you were to programme Synthetic Sincerity with two other films in a triple bill, what would they be?
F for Fake and Close-Up.
Synthetic Sincerity is in UK cinemas from July 17th. Read our review here.