Talk of artificial intelligence tends to float somewhere up in the cloud. The film follows the physical supply chain that keeps AI running, starting at quartz mines in the Appalachians and moving on to Taiwan’s chip plants, Chile’s lithium fields, the cables that run under the sea and the click-workers of Kenya. Along the way, it sets out to show what the technology costs people and the planet.
I hope to bring some nuance into the AI debate, showing the essence of technological miracles without being blind for the material, ecological and human costs,” Callens says. Callens’ previous documentary, “Dor (Longing),” about a young man who goes back to Romania to become a shepherd, won the Best Belgian Film award at the Brussels Independent Film Festival and was selected for Visions du Réel. The first scenes of the new film are already shot, and the team is now waiting to lock down the rest of its financing.
Callens is meanwhile creating images for a stage play about humanity’s failure to see and face up to the threat of climate change. Delegate producer Steven Dhoedt has a long-standing interest in new technology. One of his earliest documentaries, “Inside the Metaverse” (2010), looked at the buzz around virtual worlds long before Facebook rebranded as Meta.
Callens’ take on the subject grabbed him straight away. Belgian broadcaster VRT has boarded the project, and talks are underway with other European broadcasters. Working with James Chia-Hao Hsu of Reel Asia Pictures, its partner in Taiwan, the team also hopes to start conversations with distributors and sales agents at this stage.
The film is a co-production between Brussels-based Visualantics and Cobra Films, Paris-based Tag Film and Taipei-based Reel Asia Pictures. The Taiwan Creative Content Fest, organized by the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), runs Nov. 6–9 at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center.
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