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00:00Hello, Pete Hammond here for Contenders, the Nominees.
00:03And I have a couple of nominees sitting right here.
00:06I'm very excited.
00:08The movie is called I'm Not a Robot
00:11and it's nominated for Best Live Action Short.
00:14And we have not only its director,
00:18but we also have its producer.
00:20So welcome to Victoria Warmerdon.
00:23Hi, Victoria.
00:25Hi.
00:26She directed this and also, did you write it too?
00:29Yes, yes.
00:30Writer, director, we have.
00:32They don't have a writer's category for live action
00:35shorts, but they should.
00:36It's one of the most biggest challenges ever.
00:39We'll talk about that.
00:40And we have producer Trent.
00:42Welcome, Trent.
00:43Hello.
00:44Congratulations on the Oscar nomination.
00:47It's always a big deal.
00:49And this is the one big award that focuses on short films
00:54and gives them their due and lets
00:57the world see this wonderful kind of thing
00:59that Hollywood used to do all the time.
01:02And now it comes around at Oscar time
01:05when it comes into our conscious again.
01:07In fact, this will be part of a program
01:10being released in theaters.
01:11It's always very successful.
01:13Anyway, congratulations on this nomination.
01:16The movie, I'm Not a Robot, is something, when I watched it,
01:21I immediately related to because I have repeatedly
01:25failed this test on my computer.
01:28I'm sure you're hearing this all the time.
01:31It's one of the most frustrating things ever.
01:34It's one of those things where it says, prove you're not
01:37a robot.
01:38Prove you're a human being to me, whatever out there.
01:42But in this case, it's about a music producer named
01:45Laura who is increasingly frustrated trying
01:48to make her computer work and then actually has to wonder,
01:52what is going on here?
01:55Am I a robot?
01:56And it goes from there.
01:58But I want to show a clip before we start talking about it.
02:00So here is a little piece of I'm Not a Robot.
02:04I'm not a robot.
02:05No, I can't get through.
02:07Where do I go through?
02:09Yeah, through an automatic, I'm not a robot thing.
02:14Captcha.
02:18What did you say?
02:19That's what you call a captcha.
02:22Completely automatic public turing test
02:24to tell computers and humans apart.
02:47Good afternoon.
02:48How can I help you?
02:50Yes, good afternoon.
02:51This is Laura from Melu.
02:53Hey, I was just trying to download your mandatory update.
02:58But I can't get through.
03:01Because I'm not a robot thing on your website.
03:06Captcha.
03:07That's right.
03:09Have you refreshed the page yet?
03:12Yes, a few times.
03:14And if you click everything away and restart the thing again?
03:18Yes, already done.
03:21But you can't get through?
03:23No, that's why I'm calling.
03:30Hello?
03:31Yes, I understand that this is a personal question.
03:35But could it be that you are really a robot?
03:45Well, no.
03:49Are you sure you know that?
03:51Well, if that were the case, I would certainly know that myself.
03:55No, okay, I'm just asking.
03:57You won't be the first to get through this.
03:59I'm not a robot.
04:05So that's right at the opening of the film, as you can tell,
04:08because the title come on there.
04:10And, you know, Victoria, like I was saying,
04:14this probably, I just have to guess
04:17that this came out of your own frustration, maybe.
04:19And tell us the origin of I'm Not a Robot.
04:23Yeah, I think it was like five years ago,
04:27four or five years ago.
04:28It took us quite some time to make this film
04:30because we had to postpone shooting a couple of times
04:32because of COVID.
04:33But I think around five years ago,
04:35I was trying to get through these Captchas
04:38and I was failing for like four or five times.
04:40And I thought, oh, this might be a fun way
04:44to find out I'm a robot.
04:48And, you know, because it's such a frustrating thing,
04:51but, you know, when you think about it,
04:54like, okay, what if you are actually a robot
04:58or at least your world and, you know,
05:02like everything you thought your world was
05:05is not what it seems.
05:07And that was at the same time a very frightening idea.
05:10Yeah.
05:11It is.
05:12And so timely because AI is so front of mind every day now,
05:19everywhere we go.
05:20In fact, there's another movie,
05:22a feature film I'm reviewing
05:24that's coming out now called Companion,
05:26which also deals with this and the human beings
05:30on are they human or are they not?
05:31And what are they there for?
05:33And yours does it in 22 minutes.
05:36And it is so,
05:38so perfect from beginning to end the way it's developed
05:43and the way you take this story from her,
05:47what we just saw her frustration, all this,
05:50this is whatever, this is everyday life
05:53to really this journey that we're taking on with her.
05:57And I still have questions about it.
06:00I want people to watch it and to see it.
06:02So I don't wanna give it away.
06:04So maybe when we're done, I will ask you if I'm right,
06:08but it's a very intriguing movie.
06:13How did you decide to do this particular story
06:15as a short though?
06:18Yeah, that's a good question.
06:20I think always when an idea pops in your head,
06:24like as a filmmaker, you always have this feeling,
06:27okay, this could be a short
06:30or this is maybe for a longer version.
06:34And when I had this idea, like when the idea was sparked,
06:38I had this ending and then I thought, okay,
06:41without spoiling it too much, how do we get there?
06:44Like from, because we go from zero to a hundred
06:47in like less than half an hour,
06:49how do we get there in that short amount of time?
06:53And I thought that was a very interesting challenge
06:57for myself.
07:00So it was perfect.
07:01Like the concept was perfect for a short,
07:04but when I finished making the short film,
07:08I was still, you know, thinking about,
07:11okay, but what happens with the characters now
07:14and what happens before?
07:16And, you know, so after finishing the short,
07:19I was like, okay, but maybe this is something also
07:21to explore further in a feature version.
07:26So now I'm actually working on the feature version
07:28of this short to answer those questions myself.
07:32Perfect.
07:33We just had a scoop here on deadlines contenders.
07:39I was wondering because it is ripe for taking it further
07:44and taking us further.
07:45And this is Trent, not that unusual with shorts.
07:50We've seen many cases of something that started
07:53with a short and then expanded to feature form.
07:55So this is actually a great audition
07:57for your financiers here as producer
08:00to show what the movie's gonna be as well
08:02as a feature film.
08:04Yeah, it definitely is.
08:05It's quite a luxury to have a short,
08:10to be able to show it to investors and financiers
08:14and say, it's going to be a feature.
08:16It's a wonderful proof of concept,
08:18especially since it's dominated now.
08:20It means that there's some success around it
08:23and people want to see it.
08:24And it has been seen a lot by the New Yorker.
08:26So it's wonderful to have a short and say,
08:29we want this short to make into a feature.
08:30But like Victoria said, of course, it's another story
08:33because it's not the story about the woman
08:35who finds out I'm not a robot
08:38or whether she finds out or not.
08:41We won't spoil, but it's not about that.
08:43It's about much more than that, of course.
08:45And there's a big question of what we find out with this.
08:50It's beautifully made.
08:51It's got feature film quality all through it.
08:55And how difficult is it to produce a short
08:59on a budget that you've got here
09:00and get this kind of quality into it
09:04that you would have in a normal major movie?
09:06I must say the luxury we have here in Europe
09:09is that we have national film institutions
09:11from the government who are supporting films,
09:13also short films.
09:16So we had some support
09:19from our national film fund in the Netherlands.
09:21And we also had some support from the Belgian tech shelter.
09:26So to be honest, it was quite a nice budget, this short.
09:31You always want more,
09:32especially since we decided to shoot on 35 millimeter,
09:36which of course is a bit more expensive.
09:39But in the end, we had a great crew
09:41and we had great people, both from Belgium,
09:44both from Netherlands,
09:45who were willing to take that extra step.
09:48Talk about the casting.
09:49I thought Ellen Parren was terrific
09:51in the lead role here of Lara.
09:54And so how did you go about casting this?
09:59Yeah, well, it was funny because when I had this idea,
10:03I immediately had Ellen in mind for the lead role
10:08because she was on my list for quite a while at that point.
10:12I have this like little wishlist of actors
10:15I want to work with.
10:16And she was on top of that.
10:19So I asked her if I could actually write this film for her.
10:24And she was, you know, she was like,
10:26actors are always flattered when, you know,
10:29you ask them as a writer director to write a film, you know,
10:33but I, that way I had the luxury
10:36to tailor-made this film for her.
10:38And, you know, with some other actors,
10:41like her boyfriend, for example,
10:42that was someone I worked with before,
10:44like my two previous-
10:45Henry Van Loom?
10:47Yeah.
10:47Yeah.
10:49So that was also tailor-made.
10:51And like, I had some actors that I used,
10:54used, that sounds a bit,
10:56that I worked with before.
11:01And yeah, we always do the casting ourselves,
11:04usually for a short film, like for a feature,
11:07I think we-
11:09We might use a casting director,
11:11but we do have some tastes, like Victoria says,
11:14we do have a list of actors that we'd like to work with,
11:18whether we did work with them before or not.
11:20And also Teg La Roete was also on that list,
11:23and I had the luxury that I was doing a feature with her
11:25a couple of years ago, so I could ask her.
11:28Yeah, that's how it comes along.
11:29Yeah, and we're always looking for actors
11:31that have like a similar,
11:34like that they will understand the tone of voice,
11:37because it's so specific,
11:39because it's like comedy, but also drama.
11:43And like, you know,
11:45usually we sort of, you know,
11:48see if they have the same sense of humor.
11:51I think that's the most important part,
11:52you know, also for the crew.
11:56There's some very dry humor in this.
11:58It's never forced on you.
12:00It's like when she's taking a little questionnaire
12:03and it's asking her all these weird questions,
12:05like, do you come off as cold to other people?
12:09And she immediately stops and turns to her office worker
12:12and goes, am I cold to you?
12:14And she goes, no, you know, okay.
12:17And then fills it out.
12:20I laughed out loud at that.
12:21I love that kind of subtle stuff, but it's amazing.
12:27Let me ask your own opinions.
12:28In the industry, we're having raging debates.
12:32This is going on.
12:33I just read something yesterday
12:34that AI has now been outlawed in certain places
12:40creatively and things.
12:42What is your feeling about AI?
12:44You're making this movie, it's all fiction right now,
12:47but it's fiction that is so real
12:53and becoming so real that we can't really discount it
12:57and say, oh, that's never gonna happen.
12:59No, and I think, you know,
13:01fiction can actually help people maybe to understand,
13:05you know, what's going on
13:09and what we have to expect in the future.
13:12Because it's at the same time, it's such an abstract thing,
13:16but there's a lot going on now.
13:18Like, you know, I am worried about the creative part,
13:21like for in our industry, like at some point,
13:25you know, maybe you, well, I think you already can.
13:29If people say, okay, just write a Victoria Varmudan film
13:33and then I like, you know, there's no where,
13:36like, but at the same time, I really feel like
13:39there will always be a need for human creativity.
13:42Like, maybe it will, you know, will go up in value,
13:48you know, because now you can buy a Chanel bag,
13:51you can buy a fake Chanel bag,
13:52but people still want a real Chanel bag, you know?
13:56So maybe at some point people will like,
14:00want a real script by a human.
14:03Maybe that's the value will increase.
14:06I don't know, I hope.
14:07Well, it is intriguing and the way producers,
14:11Trent, are using AI is increasingly suspect, in my opinion.
14:17We've seen controversy about some of your fellow
14:20Academy Award nominated films already on the feature side
14:24and the use of AI.
14:26So people are watching out there and seeing.
14:30This was a big part of the actor's strike.
14:32Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:35Yeah, it's not something that we have to embrace it,
14:38of course, but it's also something we cannot avoid,
14:40I think, right?
14:43It's exactly right.
14:44Well, I want to thank Victoria Wormedam and Trent
14:49for making this movie number one
14:51and now for being Academy Award nominees,
14:54you're going to the Oscars.
14:55This is so cool.
14:58We still have a bit, but we really have to go now.
15:02We really have to go.
15:04Oh, you gotta go.
15:05Force yourself, force yourself.
15:08We will see you on the red carpet.
15:10Thank you for joining our contenders event today
15:13here at Deadline.
15:14Thanks a lot, guys.
15:16Thanks for having us.