The 19th Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) 2026 featured a curated section titled "The AI Films" that showcased the convergence of storytelling and artificial intelligence technology. The films demonstrated how AI serves as a creative tool enabling filmmakers to explore complex narratives spanning history, mythology, personal memory, and meta-cinematic boundaries, rather than replacing human creativity.
Notable films included "Legends – The Eternal Flame of Mewar" directed by Deepak Vijay, which depicted historical eras from Bappa Rawal to Maharana Pratap portraying a kingdom defined by honor. "The Screenwriter" by Laurent Cliquet examined the psychological struggles of the creative process through a confined perspective. Xuan Li's "The Star Shepherd" was a tactile, felt-animation music video inspired by a UNICEF visit to Malawi illustrating how love connects strangers.
Other featured works included "Kishkindha: Van Katha" by Aksht Verma drawing on research across multiple Puranas to recreate conflicts and politics in the ancient Vanara kingdom, and Talya Lotan's "Stonewall, The Making of" tracking the creation of an unmade feature about a Civil War general. Additional films included "The Act of Killing Dreams" by Karsh Jhaveri examining artistic tradition and technological collision, Germany's "The Cinema That Never Was" by Mark Wachholz meditating on absence through generative workflows, "The Echo Monastery" by Rajesh Bhatia and Bharat Arora following a grieving Ladakhi woman's journey, and "The Legend of Birsa Munda" by Samresh Shrivastav, an AI-assisted biographical animation tribute to indigenous resistance against colonial rule.
The collection offered film enthusiasts a glimpse into the future of international filmmaking, demonstrating that AI can help depict deeply human stories when used as a creative tool alongside traditional methods.