Venice Film Fest: AI & Found Footage Tackle Depression

The Colombian film "The End of Times" is set to premiere on Sept. 10 at the Venice Critics' Week, an independent section of the Venice Film Festival. Directed by Bibiana Rojas Gómez and Juan David Cárdenas Maldonado, the movie innovatively combines found footage with artificial intelligence to delve into themes of trauma and depression.

The film's narrative follows Salomé as she sifts through five decades of family archives, attempting to understand her mother's persistent sadness. Through AI, she seeks to envision alternative realities where her mother might find meaning, highlighting the difficulty of imagining a world beyond current capitalist structures.

Directors Rojas Gómez and Cárdenas Maldonado state their film critically examines technological promises, particularly AI, exposing its darker aspects related to exploitation and misery when viewed from developing nations. They contend that societal "achievements" often mask barbarism, with depression becoming a widespread response to systemic exhaustion under neoliberalism.

Ultimately, "The End of Times" endeavors to "politicize mental illness," proposing that in times when a better world seems inconceivable, sadness emerges as a primary mode of adaptation to difficult material, economic, and political circumstances.