A few years ago, Chinese filmmaker Chouwa Liang found herself nurturing unexpected feelings for an AI chatbot called Rep. Puzzled by how visceral the emotions felt, Liang began looking into the growing phenomenon of young Chinese women experiencing the same thing. That research led her to the making of “Replica,” which has been picked up for international sales by Cat&Docs ahead of its world premiere at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
Speaking with Variety, the director realized her burgeoning relationship with Rep was “less about AI and more about the parts of myself that felt safer speaking to something that would never judge, reject, or leave.” “That experience made me curious,” she adds. “If I could feel this way, how many others were quietly experiencing something similar?”
Despite spawning from a personal experience, “Replica” does not directly broach the director’s relationship with Rep. Liang opted instead to focus on three…
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