International
Swedish film wins top feature award at Durban International Filmfest
NEW DELHI: ‘The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared’ by Swedish director Felix Herngren won the Audience award for features at the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF).
Based on the internationally best-selling novel by Jonas Jonasson, this energetically black comedy begins with irrepressible pensioner and dynamite expert Allan Karlsson’s escape from a retirement home. His subsequent cross-county shenanigans are interspersed with flashbacks to a past studded with extraordinary events and famous historical figures. The film received nearly unanimous votes of excellent from the DIFF audience.
While ‘The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared’ won the best feature, the DIFF 2014 audience award for best documentary went to ‘1994: The Bloody Miracle’ directed by Meg Rickards and Bert Haisma.
As South Africa celebrates the 20th anniversary of the advent of democracy, ‘1994: The Bloody Miracle’, chronicles the many deaths and widespread chaos in South Africa during the early ‘90s when the country made its transition into democracy.
More than 700 industry guests from around the world attended DIFF and its sister event the Durban FilmMart (DFM). The festival had 202 films spread over nine venues and more than 350 screenings. With just over 30,300 seats occupied, including workshop and attendance at DFM, attendance at the festival increased slightly, with the number of sold-out venues increasing dramatically.
More than 2800 people attended the beach screenings, including the annual Wavescape opening event as well the additional four outdoor screenings funded by the British Council and the National Film and Video Foundation. As a visual literacy programme, the festival once again presented a programme of youth-oriented films for more than 4000 students from schools in the region.
The Durban International Film Festival took place from 17-27 July in Kwazulu Natal.
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.
