International
Chinese film bags back-to-back Locarno top award
MUMBAI: A Chinese film has bagged the top honour at the Locarno Film Festival. Li Hongqi ‘s Han Jia (Winter Vacation), a coming-of-age story set it small town China won the Festival‘s Golden Leopard prize. This is the second consecutive year that a film from a Chinese director has bagged the festival‘s top prize.
Last year, it was Xiaolu Guo-directed She, a Chinese that had won the Golden Leopard. Combined with this year‘s winning film, this marks the first time since 1995-96 when the same country won back-to-back Golden Leopards.
Among the festival‘s other top prizes: Morgen, a border drama set on the boundary between Romania and Hungary from Marian Crisan won a Special Jury Prize while Denis Cote was given the Prize of the City and Region of Locarno for Best Director for the Canadian thriller Curling.
Emmanuel Bilodeau, who played the male lead in Curling won the best actor award while Jasna Duricic won the best actress honor for her work in Beli Belisvet (White White World).
The top prize carries an award of 90,000 Swiss francs ($85,000), while the Jury Prize and Best Director award are worth 30,000 Swiss francs ($28,000) each.
The award ceremony was followed by the world premiere of Sommervogel (Little Paradise), a first feature film from 64-year-old Swiss director Paul Riniker, a veteran of more than 70 documentaries.
Saturday, that was the closing day of the festival also saw the closing of the Open Doors co-production laboratory, which focused on films from Central Asia, and the final screenings of the well-received Ernst Lubitsch retrospective.
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.
