Executives from Alibaba Token Hub, Sonilo and PROMPTR joined film educator Barry Dignam at a TapNow-hosted panel during the Venice Film Festival‘s Venice Production Bridge to debate AI filmmaking’s creative and economic impact, capped by a technical breakdown of the AI-generated series “Primodia.”
The panel, titled “AI x Cinema: The 10,000 Parallel Universes Initiative,” was held at Hotel Excelsior and cohosted with event organizer Dogme23. It was moderated by Sabrina Qin, brand lead at TapNow, the AI creative platform developed by California-based Tamar AI, which also operates the AI-native streaming platform Glanze. Panelists included Tianshu Zhu, head of global AI product solutions at Alibaba Token Hub; Dignam, vice dean of FilmEU at IADT and chair of the CILECT European chapter; Ben Chimoy, GenAI director at PROMPTR and founder of AI Filmmakers Berlin; and Shawn Song, co-founder and CEO of Sonilo, who previously led audio research at TikTok.
Chimoy, who spent 15 years in traditional filmmaking before moving into AI video, said his shift began while producing fashion films for Zalando. He said a client preferred an AI-generated version of a project over the final produced film because it felt more emotional, a reaction he called unexpected given AI’s reputation for being unemotional.
