Bad Seed
2024 · 7m
Directed by Karan Sridharan, Yashaswini Nath
Genres: dark comedy, satire, sci-fi
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
Made almost entirely with Midjourney in two weeks, this AI-generated dystopian dark comedy follows a protagonist who questions his existence until he realizes he is merely an incorrect prompt — and that 'God' is an entity generating humans with its own version of Gen AI. Karan Sridharan and Yashaswini Nath's 7-minute short blends sci-fi mystery with satirical jabs at the AI industry.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
This is the kind of premise that makes everyone else uncomfortable—a film made entirely by AI to argue that we're all AI-generated mistakes—and it's *funny* about it, which is the only way it could possibly work. Two weeks, Midjourney, zero apologies; it's the most genuinely subversive thing about AI cinema because it doesn't pretend to be human-made.
Technically audacious as a production methodology, though the film's reliance on generative aesthetics works against rather than within any meaningful lineage of dystopian satire or experimental animation—it's formally interesting but lacks the deliberate craft choices that distinguish satire from mere premise.
The actual masterstroke here isn't the AI generation itself; it's the decision to let the visual inconsistency and uncanny valley of Midjourney output *become* the film's argument about authenticity and control—that singular choice transforms what could've been a gimmick into something genuinely unsettling.
Reviews
Bad Seed charms with its engaging storytelling and pushes the boundaries of AI technology in filmmaking. It provides a peek into the future of filmmaking, where human creativity and artificial intelligence coexist.