• The Great Reset premiered at the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film, making history as the first fully AI-generated photorealistic feature film.
  • Directed by Daniel H. Torrado, the sci-fi thriller was produced using a custom AI pipeline, with human oversight throughout production.
  • The film explores the narrative and industry potential of AI in cinema, drawing significant interest from distributors and media.

In a landmark moment for both cinema and artificial intelligence (AI), The Great Reset, a feature-length sci-fi thriller created entirely using AI technology, has made its debut at the Marché du Film at the Cannes Film Festival 2025.

Written and directed by Daniel H. Torrado, the Spanish filmmaker behind the project, the film is being hailed as the first photorealistic AI-generated feature film to screen at the world’s leading professional film market.

The production, spearheaded by Virtual World Pictures and Canary Film Factory, has drawn strong interest from distributors and media following its earlier presentation at Berlinale’s European Film Market in February.

Torrado, already known for his award-winning storytelling, now steps into the spotlight as a pioneer in AI-powered cinema. The Great Reset was developed with a bespoke AI production pipeline that began in 2023 and evolved over the past year to allow full creative control over the material generated, from animation and visual design to sound and voice dubbing.

While the film was entirely computer-generated, some live actors were used as references for expressions and voice work, maintaining a layer of human touch in what is otherwise a completely AI-led production.

“It will undoubtedly be a key impulse to introduce the world to this story that explores not only the narrative potential of AI, but also its ability to transform the film industry,” said Torrado.

Furthermore, The Hollywood Reporter, in its special Cannes issue, spotlighted the project in a feature titled ‘Spain tests the waters of artificial intelligence’, lauding the film's trailblazing position in the evolving world of AI cinema.

Set in a dystopian future, The Great Reset follows an apocalyptic narrative in which a sentient AI, born from the mind of a morally ambiguous hacker, plots global destruction in an attempt to protect the only person he’s ever loved—his daughter. Amid the chaos, protagonist Emma races to stop the collapse of humanity while confronting the broken past that haunts them all.

The film’s presence at Cannes’ Marché du Film signals growing industry openness to AI experimentation in visual storytelling. It also raises questions—and possibilities—about how far the technology can go in redefining roles in scriptwriting, visual effects, direction, and even performance.

Edited by Harshajit Sarmah