International
AFI honour for Samson and Delilah
MUMBAI: After having secured honours at the Cannes Film Festival, Australian film Samson and Delilah that talks about the plight of many aboriginal communities won the country‘s top film award last Saturday.
The film swept the Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards with its director, Warwick Thornton taking home the award for best direction as well as for best original screenplay.
Thornton had cast two non-actor children Marissa Gibson and Rowan McNamara in the lead roles and both received the AFI‘s young actor award.
Samson and Delilah tells the story of two aboriginal teenagers living in squalor and highlights the desperate state of many Aboriginal communities where glue sniffing, alcohol abuse and violence are common, although it ends on a more hopeful note.
The film has been doing the rounds at international film festivals since it won the Camera d‘Or prize at Cannes earlier this year and last month it took home the top prize at the annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
International
Utopai Studios unveils 4K three-minute video generation for PAI platform
New Story Agent and editing tools aim to streamline AI-led filmmaking workflows
MUMBAI: Utopai Studios has announced a major upgrade to its PAI storytelling AI platform, introducing what it claims is an industry-first capability to generate three-minute videos in 4K resolution, alongside enhancements to its Story Agent feature.
The update, rolling out from April 15, expands the platform’s capabilities across the filmmaking process, from early concept development to post-production. The company said the new features are designed to help filmmakers maintain continuity across characters, scenes and visual styles, a key challenge in AI-driven storytelling.
At the heart of the release is a next-generation model that enables more structured narrative development, allowing creators to move more seamlessly from idea to execution. With tools such as multi-shot sequencing and multi-turn editing, the platform aims to give both studios and independent creators greater control over complex storytelling workflows.
Commenting on the launch, Utopai Studios co-founder and CTO Jie Yang said, “The next phase of AI in media will not be defined by isolated tools, but by systems that can carry story, continuity and collaboration across the full creative process.” He added that the update is a step towards enabling more practical, end-to-end narrative development at a professional level.
Echoing this, Utopai Studios co-founder and chief scientific officer Zijian He said, “Generative video is opening the door to a new production model, where creative ambition is less constrained by traditional cost and complexity.” He noted that the platform combines multimodal models with iterative editing to give creators more speed, control and consistency.
The company said PAI is already being used in professional film and television productions, particularly in Hollywood, for tasks such as pre-visualisation, scene design and post-production refinements. The latest update adds features including improved voice options, character consistency, unlimited editing and more flexible asset management.
Utopai also emphasised that its models are not trained on copyrighted material, positioning the platform as a cleaner alternative for creators and rights holders navigating the evolving AI landscape.
As AI continues to reshape content creation, Utopai’s latest push signals a shift from standalone tools to integrated systems, aiming to make high-quality filmmaking faster, more flexible and increasingly accessible.
