AI-Created Vintage Adult Film Unveiled at Cannes (EXCLUSIVE)

A collection of AI-generated short films drawn from erotic magazine photo spreads published 50 years ago has made its debut on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival, streaming on Cultpix with a physical release on BluRay and VHS from Klubb Super 8 to follow.

The project was developed by Thomas Meier of Norwegian company Multiformat, who used generative AI tools to transform 1976 magazine photo spreads into full motion video with colour, synchronised sound, dialogue and voice-over. A physical release on BluRay and VHS will follow from Klubb Super 8, including a limited VHS edition.

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“We want to use the latest technology to stimulate a discussion about attitudes to images that are now half a century old,” Cultpix CEO and Co-Founder Rickard Gramfors said. “What was once considered shocking ‘adult’ material now seems remarkably innocent by today’s standards. By bringing these static images to life through AI, we’re creating a conversation between past risqué aesthetics and new technology, exploring how our attitudes to the human body and sexuality have evolved over fifty years.”

The Cannes announcement arrives as the festival screened a restored print of Ken Russell’s “The Devils” (1971), a film that faced heavy censorship on its original release and remains a touchstone for debates around artistic freedom and sexuality on screen.

The films land amid growing academic and curatorial interest in vintage erotica. Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles earlier this year presented an “Eros” season paying tribute to the theater’s history as an adult cinema in the 1970s. The Swedish Film Institute’s Cinemateket, meanwhile, hosted Svenska Synden – a retrospective examining how Swedish cinema’s permissive approach to nudity and sexuality became an international phenomenon that alarmed censors around the world.

Cultpix launched in April 2021 and positions itself as the world’s largest cult and genre streaming platform – one that has championed the movies that populated drive-in and grindhouse circuits, from horror and science fiction to martial arts and spaghetti westerns. The platform has maintained a curated strand of vintage erotica in collaboration with specialist rights holders including Something Weird Video and Vinegar Syndrome.