UFO Sweden devient le premier film à changer de langue via un système de doublage visuel fonctionnant grâce à l’IA – Dossier industrie: Nouveaux médias

UFO Sweden, created by film collective Crazy Pictures and directed by Victor Danell, was filmed in Norrköping and premiered in Sweden on Christmas Day 2022. Since then, it has been sold to over 100 countries. The sci-fi movie is now set for an English-language re-release in Australia, the USA and the UK on 9 May, becoming the first feature to use visual dubbing, having used AI technology to synchronise actors’ lip movements and facial expressions to match another language – Swedish to English, in this case.

Recently, AI has been used in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film] to fine-tune actors’ pronunciation, but UFO Sweden has adopted a different approach. The original cast returned to the studio to dub their lines in English, and AI technology was then used to visually synchronise their lip movements to the new language.

“UFO Sweden is a genre film with a clear audience, but language has been a barrier – especially in the USA, where few people watch subtitled films. Now, the entire movie has been adapted to feel as if it were originally shot in English,” said Olle Tholén, producer at Crazy Pictures, in an interview with DN.

The new dubbing technology has been developed in collaboration with XYZ Films, which was first introduced to UFO Sweden at its screening during the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, alongside Flawless AI. Both companies recognised the potential of merging local authenticity with global accessibility and took up the task. “They thought the film was a great fit as their first project using this technology. It has an American feel but is also distinctly Nordic,” added Tholén.

Henric Larsson, founder of Chimney and an expert in post-production, sees the technology as the beginning of a new era for film: “AI makes dubbing cheaper, faster and better. And for small markets like Sweden, it opens doors to new revenue streams. Within two years, the technology will be so good that it will be impossible to distinguish it from the original,” he told DN.

Crazy Pictures has released an information film on the new version of UFO Sweden – check it out here.