International
Girl With The Dragon Tattoo wins PSIFF award for best narrative feature
MUMBAI: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has won the 21st Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival‘s (PSIFF) Mercedes-Benz Audience Award for best narrative feature.
The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg And
The Pentagon Papers (USA) directed by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith received the audience award for best documentary feature.
The FIPRESCI Award for best foreign language film of the year went to Involuntary, Sweden‘s foreign language Oscar submission by Ruben Ostlund.
Tedo Bekhauri received the FIPRESCI Award for best actor for his performance in George Ovashvili‘s The Other Bank (Georgia/Kazakhstan) and Anne Dorval received the best actress award for her performance in I Killed My Mother (Canada) by Xavier Dolan.
The New Voices/New Visions jury of IFC Films‘ Arianna Bocco, Zeitgeist Films‘ Nancy Gerstman and Sara Rose from Apparition awarded its top prize to Ounie Lecomte‘s A Brand New Life (South Korea/France). An honorable mention went to Vladimir Paskaljevic‘s satirical Serbian entry Devil‘s Town.
The festival‘s programming team selected Haim Tabakman for the John Schlesinger Award For Outstanding First Feature (narrative or documentary) for his Israeli film Eyes Wide Open.
Letters To Father Jacob (Finland) directed by Klaus Haro received the Bridging The Borders Award presented by Cinema Without Borders.
“The festival that opened on 5 January culminates on Monday with the ‘Best Of The Fest‘ screenings.
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.
