Gentle

Inspiration

Gentle was inspired by a real story of stillbirth and the quiet, invisible grief that follows. I wanted to explore how loss can feel suspended in time — like life is moving around you while you stay completely still. The goal wasn’t to recreate realism, but to express an emotional truth through imagery that feels tender, fragile, and a little otherworldly.

What it does

Gentle turns a deeply personal story into a visual poem. It uses AI-generated imagery to express the emotional landscape of grief — not to replace real storytelling, but to give shape to feelings that are normally hard to articulate. The film invites the viewer to sit inside silence, stillness, and the small moments that carry enormous weight.

How we built it

— I collaborated with writer Sara Decou, who crafted the original script based on her lived experience. — I storyboarded the film in Figma to map the emotional arc before generating any imagery. — I generated and art-directed hundreds of AI stills using Midjourney, shaping a visual tone that felt soft, raw, and slightly surreal. — The film was animated using Runway and Kling to give the stills slow, delicate motion. — The stills were animated using Runway and Kling to create slow, delicate motion that supported the narrative. — The color grade was done manually to keep visual consistency across scenes. — We worked with a human sound designer, using ElevenLabs only certain sound effects and exploration. The final mix was crafted fully by hand. — All timing, pacing, and edit decisions were refined carefully to keep the story grounded, intimate, and human.

Challenges we ran into

The hardest part was treating the material with the respect it deserved. The story is heavy, and many of the shots carry a quiet gravitas — they needed to say a lot without showing too much. We spent a long time finding a balance between emotional truth and restraint.

Another challenge was making sure the film didn’t feel like AI. We wanted it to look filmic, human, and grounded, so every frame had to be shaped, corrected, and softened to do justice to the story. Keeping the animation subtle was its own discipline — anything too “effect-driven” broke the intimacy we were trying to protect.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We created a film about stillbirth that feels gentle, respectful, and emotionally grounded — and seeing it resonate with audiences has meant more than anything.

Gentle has also been recognised at a number of international festivals. It won the Silver Award at OMNI, judged in part by George Miller, which was a major honour for such a personal project. The film went on to receive Best AI-Generated Film at VastFilm (Buenos Aires), Best Narrative Short and Best Short Director at the AI International Film Festival (Los Angeles), Best First-Time Director at Cine Paris, Best Female Director at the LA International Art Film Fest, and a Silver Award at the London Movie Awards.

What we learned

Gentle reminded us that generative tools aren’t a shortcut; making a high-quality film takes an enormous amount of curation, direction, and patience. Every frame needed shaping to keep the tone grounded and respectful. We also saw how hungry audiences are for something outside the usual AI sci-fi aesthetic, which is often dominated by male perspectives. There’s a real appetite for softer, more feminine, emotionally driven work in this medium — and Gentle reinforced that those stories have a place and a future here.

What's next for Gentle

We’ll continue submitting Gentle to festivals and sharing it at small screenings, mainly to keep the conversation around the film alive. Beyond that, I hope it serves as a quiet signal for more women to step into AI filmmaking — to show that this medium can hold space for softness, nuance, and deeply human stories.

Built With

• elevenlabs
• kling
• midjourney
• runway
• topaz