International
The Girl From Nowhere wins Locarno’s Golden Leopard honour
MUMBAI: Jean-Claude Brisseau‘s low-budget and self-financed self-discovery drama La fille de nulle part (The Girl From Nowhere) won a cash award that came along with Locarno‘s prestigious Golden Leopard honor.
While Bob Byington‘s comedy Somebody Up There Likes Me won the special jury prize, the Cate Shortland‘s war drama Lore won the honour as the best film to screen at the fest.
Chinese director Liang Ying‘s Wo Hai You Hua Yao Shuo (When Night Falls), the true story of a man who killed six Shanghai policemen after being beaten for riding an unlicensed bike, was the only film to win two major awards: one for Liang as best director and one for Best Actress for An Nai, who played the killer‘s mother.
Walter Saabel won the award as Best Actor for his role in Der glanz des tages, while Camille Redouble (Camille Rewinds), a story about a middle-aged woman who mysteriously falls back in time to her high-school days from Noemie Lvovsky, won the Piazza Grande Award for films that screened in Locarno‘s main square. Lvovsky, who is a member of the main jury that awarded the prize to Brisseau‘s La fille de nulle part, directed and starred in her film.
Jury president, Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul described the film as “bold and entertaining.”
Among the festival‘s other awards, the main jury made a special mention of the character Candy, played by Cindy Scrash, in A ultima vez que vi Macau (The Last Time I Saw Macau) from Jo?o Rui Guerra da Mata and Jo?o Pedro Rodrigues. The jury applauded her “powerful presence through absence, which resonated.”
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.
