Kore-eda Hirokazu Dropped an AI Chatbot From His Script Process
Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu shared the screenplay for his latest film with a generative AI chatbot, went back and forth with it several times, then stopped using it. Variety reported the move on 23 October 2026.
Generative AI is software that produces text, images or other material in response to typed instructions. Kore-eda gave his chatbot a nickname, "Chat-kun," and the film it helped shape is Sheep in the Box.
Kore-eda said he did not use AI on the finished film. He intends to keep AI out of the filmmaking process as far as he can, so the work rests on human choices.
The film is set in the near future. A couple whose 7-year-old son died two years earlier take in a humanoid robot built from the boy's data. Ayase Haruka plays Otone, an architect, and Yamamoto Daigo plays her husband, Kensuke, in his first leading role.
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2026, where it competed. Kore-eda found the starting point in dystopian headlines about Chinese companies using AI, according to Variety's May coverage.
The 37th Singapore International Film Festival, branded SGIFF 2026, runs from 21 October to 1 November. Kore-eda is receiving its Cinema Honorary Award. The festival is also screening Look Back, his live-action adaptation of Fujimoto Tatsuki's 2021 one-shot manga, a standalone comic told in a single installment. Look Back competed in Venice and stars Deguchi Natsuki as Fujino and Makita Aju as Kyomoto.
On 24 October, the festival hosts "In Conversation With Hirokazu Koreeda," a session covering more than three decades of his filmmaking. Tickets cost $10. The Silver Screen Awards follow on 31 October, and the festival's Screen Icon Award goes to Aamir Khan.
Tickets, passes and Rush Queue access, the festival's standby line, are all handled through SGIFF.com. Booking requires an account on the site.
What stands out here is the timing. A director who has spent years making films about families is, at the same festival where he is honoured, talking openly about which tools he kept out of the room. The festival's programme runs from its Asian feature competition of 10 works to restorations of seven international classics, so Kore-eda's session sits within a wide schedule.
