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MUMBAI: Lights, camera, artificial intelligence! The future of Indian filmmaking took centre stage in Mumbai as the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) and YouTube screened four AI-enabled short films under their collaborative Create with AI programme, bringing mythology, space exploration, historical warfare and ancient Indian strategy to the screen.
The four projects, screened in the order DEVI: The Nine Astras, Laika, Chekavar and CHANAKYA – The Mind of an Empire, were developed by Kalpanik Films LLP, Karthik Kult Kreations, Avium Studios and Eleventh Door Studio, respectively. The showcase brought together filmmakers and creative technology professionals to explore how artificial intelligence can expand storytelling possibilities without removing the human imagination behind them.
Filmmaker Rajesh Mapuskar attended the event as a guest, which also featured behind-the-scenes presentations and discussions on how the participating studios incorporated AI into their production processes.
Opening the presentation, a YouTube representative emphasised that artificial intelligence should strengthen creative expression rather than replace it.
“Our conviction in YouTube is super clear. We truly believe that creativity always begins and ends with human imagination,” the representative said, adding that AI’s role was to augment creativity and become a collaborative partner for storytellers.
The presentation also highlighted the potential economic impact of generative AI on India’s creative industries. Citing a Gen Media report by Publicis First and Google, the speaker said generative media tools were already delivering nearly a 20 per cent productivity boost to creative workers in India who use them, equivalent to approximately 10 additional weeks of productive time annually.
The report’s estimates suggested that these productivity improvements could contribute Rs750 billion to India’s GDP over the next decade and support nearly 400,000 additional jobs in the creative industry.
However, the speaker argued that efficiency represented only the beginning of the opportunity. AI-powered tools could also help Indian creators overcome language barriers, expand their audiences and produce ambitious content without depending entirely on conventional production re
The first film screened was DEVI: The Nine Astras, an action-mythology project by Kalpanik Films LLP that reimagines the nine manifestations of Goddess Durga and explores the divine power of Shakti restoring cosmic balance.
The project was developed by Kalpanik Films founders Vishal Yoman, Founder and CEO, and Ayushi Anand, Co-Founder and COO. The filmmakers combined traditional mythological research with generative AI tools to create a visually ambitious interpretation of Indian mythology.
Explaining the inspiration behind the project, Yoman said, “In Indian mythological spectrum, people always choose the most popular topics, but I always wanted to create a story which is least talked about in the industry, which was never told before.”
Yoman explained that portraying the complexity and scale of the goddess’s different manifestations would traditionally require substantial budgets and lengthy production schedules. AI offered the team an opportunity to pursue that ambition with comparatively limited re
“It was the right time, the right technology, right tool to create such story,” he said.
The filmmakers began by researching the Puranas and incorporating the material into Google’s NotebookLM to assist with scripting and character development.
Anand explained, “Our team first researched the Puranas. We ingested all the Puranic books to NotebookLM, where we made the script.”
Describing how the technology supported the production, she added, “It was just like another team member. It helped us in each and every step.”
The team also worked with actor Nyra Banerjee, whose expressions, body language and performance became the foundation for the AI-enabled representation of Devi. Google Vids and Google Veo were used to develop cinematic visuals, while Flow Music helped create the project’s title track.
Anand said Banerjee’s participation was particularly important because the filmmakers wanted the digitally generated imagery to retain emotional depth.
“Having Nyra in the show was the bridge where AI and human was connected,” she said.
During the discussion following the screening, the team explained that Banerjee had been digitally cloned using Google’s AI tools and incorporated into the production.
Anand described the film as a tribute to Maa Vindhyavasini and addressed concerns about whether AI-generated films could deliver convincing emotions.
“And people think, how will emotion come through AI? It will come through our actresses and actors,” she said.
Banerjee also expressed optimism about the possibilities AI could create for performers, suggesting that emerging production methods could allow actors to participate in more projects.
“This is going to set a new trend, a new generation of filmmaking,” she said.
DEVI was presented as a nine-episode project, with each episode running approximately three minutes. The organisers announced that the complete film would be available on YouTube following the event.
The second screening, Laika, shifted the audience from divine mythology to the emotional and scientific imagination of space exploration.
Developed by Karthik Kult Kreations, the film explores sacrifice, space exploration and the relationship between humans and animals. The project was produced and led by studio founder Karthik Sabareesh, also known as Sabareesh Kumar Reddy Pamuru.
While space-based storytelling often relies on elaborate visual effects and expensive production environments, Laika places an emotional narrative at the centre of its science-fiction setting.
The project demonstrates how AI-enabled filmmaking can be used to construct imaginative environments while supporting stories driven by relationships, emotional conflict and sacrifice.
Its inclusion in the programme also broadens the scope of the showcase beyond mythology and historical reconstruction, bringing science fiction and human-animal relationships into the conversation about AI-assisted storytelling.
The third film, Chekavar, took the showcase into India’s historical past with a fictional narrative set against the backdrop of the 1741 Battle of Colachel.
Developed by Avium Studios in collaboration with Garuda X Media, the film was written and directed by Gijo Uthuppu. It draws upon regional history and martial traditions while attempting to recreate the atmosphere and scale of historical conflict.
One of the production’s central challenges was building large battle sequences involving more than 100 people, something that would ordinarily require extensive casting, location management, costumes and production re
In the event transcript, the filmmaker presenting the historical battle project described the challenge of achieving such scale with a small production team.
“More than 100 people are coming together and fighting. The massive look and feel, getting into that kind of a scale of a fight, it was our biggest challenge,” the speaker said.
The presentation also raised a question increasingly relevant to independent filmmakers: whether a small team could produce a film with the visual scale of a much larger production.
“Can a small team can make a big movie like this? But with AI, we proved that it’s possible,” the filmmaker said.
The discussion made clear, however, that generative AI did not eliminate the need for traditional filmmaking expertise.
The production team sought assistance from cinematographers on camera angles and lens choices, while other professionals contributed to scriptwriting, dubbing and maintaining consistent character voices.
A behind-the-scenes speaker emphasised that filmmaking with AI still requires creative discipline and technical knowledge.
“It’s not like you go and prompt to make a film,” the speaker said, explaining that editing, sound design and camera angles remained essential elements of the process.
The presentation also highlighted the importance of understanding conventional filmmaking practices before attempting to use generative tools effectively.
The historical film therefore illustrated two sides of AI production: its ability to help smaller teams attempt ambitious visual sequences and its continued dependence on human judgement to make those sequences work as cinema.
The fourth and final screening, CHANAKYA – The Mind of an Empire, brought the programme into ancient India’s political and intellectual history.
Developed by Eleventh Door Studio, the historical epic follows the strategic journey of Chanakya, the thinker and political strategist closely associated with the establishment of the Mauryan Empire.
The project was led by the studio’s creative head and producer, Nishith Dayal, and explores the decisions, political calculations and strategic thinking associated with one of ancient India’s most influential historical figures.
Unlike the large-scale action of Chekavar or the mythological world-building of DEVI, CHANAKYA centres on the intellectual and political dimensions of historical storytelling.
The film’s inclusion demonstrates how AI-enabled production can be applied to stories involving ancient settings, period reconstruction and complex historical characters.
Together, the four films presented contrasting approaches to using generative technology, ranging from divine mythology and emotionally driven science fiction to historical warfare and political strategy.
Beyond the screenings, a recurring theme throughout the event was that AI should be treated as an additional creative tool rather than a substitute for filmmakers, performers or production professionals.
The DEVI team demonstrated how generative tools could assist with research, scripting, visuals and music while still relying on an actor to provide the emotional foundation of the story.
Similarly, the historical battle presentation showed how AI could help overcome production limitations while preserving the importance of cinematography, editing, dubbing and sound design.
The YouTube representative argued that realising the technology’s potential would require more than developing increasingly powerful AI tools.
“It truly requires building skills. And it requires building institutional infrastructure, and an inclusive ecosystem that can help create the next generation of storytellers and creators,” the representative said.
The IICT–YouTube collaboration is intended to support that process by equipping students, industry professionals and emerging storytellers with practical expertise in AI-enabled creative production.
The programme also seeks to connect emerging technologies with India’s existing storytelling traditions, giving independent studios opportunities to experiment with projects that might otherwise face substantial financial or logistical barriers.
The presentation described the ambition as enabling filmmakers to iterate faster, attempt larger creative worlds and produce cinema-grade work on an independent scale.
From the divine manifestations of Shakti in DEVI to Laika’s emotional space narrative, Chekavar’s historical battlefield and CHANAKYA’s political strategy, the four screenings illustrated the range of storytelling possibilities being explored through AI.
They also highlighted how differently studios are approaching the technology. Some are using it to recreate large-scale visual environments, while others are exploring how it can support research, performance, historical reconstruction and production workflows.
For independent filmmakers, the implications extend beyond faster production. Generative tools could potentially reduce the reity of the final work still depends on the strength of its writing, direction, performances and creative decisions
The IICT–YouTube Create with AI programme offered a glimpse of that evolving relationship between technology and storytelling. Rather than presenting artificial intelligence as a filmmaker in its own right, the four projects demonstrated how Indian creators are beginning to incorporate it into the craft of making films.
The next chapter of AI-enabled Indian cinema may therefore depend less on what the technology can generate independently and more on what filmmakers can achieve when they combine it with imagination, experience and a story worth telling.
