Generation

The Grand Prix winner of Runway's first AI Film Festival. In two minutes, a narrator walks through the history of life, from the big bang and the first cells to lizards, apes and people, while a dancer's body breaks apart into shifting particles and textures. Riccardo Fusetti filmed choreographer Evie Webzell, rotoscoped the whole performance, hand-animated stock footage inside her silhouette, then had Disco Diffusion repaint every frame, compositing the results back at 24 frames a second. It premiered on Short of the Week in September 2022 as the site's first AI-assisted selection, months before the festival existed.