How will we react to the human face once AI has learnt to fake it? And how might this technology affect cinema in the future?
Synthetic Sincerity, a new docu-fiction feature film by Adam Ganz and Marc Isaacs, has its UK premiere at the Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival on June 10th. Written by Ganz, a Professor of Media Arts at Royal Holloway and directed by Isaacs, a former lecturer at Royal Holloway, the film centres around a fictional AI lab that scrapes movies to harvest human emotions.
A university research lab is trying to build authentic AI characters and they've licensed a documentary filmmaker's back catalogue to teach them what's missing. The Synthetic Sincerity Lab has turned to the work of filmmaker Marc Isaacs for answers, licensing his films to study what their AI creations lack. In return, Isaacs gets to document the lab's process. What unfolds is a playful and disorienting blend of documentary and fiction, where the boundaries between what's real and what's fabricated keep shifting under your feet. Witty, inventive and genuinely slippery, it's a film that uses humour and clever storytelling to ask what happens to the human face when AI starts learning to fake it.
After its premiere, the film will enjoy a UK theatrical release on July 16th with screenings at the Curzon Bloomsbury and the ICA London. The Curzon screening will be followed by a Q & A with Marc Isaacs and Adam Ganz, compeered by Mandy Merck, emeritus professor at Royal Holloway.
"Warm, funny and generous... a true original from one of Britain’s most inquisitive and adventurous directors". Ryan Gilbey, The Guardian.
Read the Guardian’s full review of this film which "shines a hard light on just how far AI can go": https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/18/marc-isaacs-synthetic-sincerity-ai
View the trailer here: www.vimeo.com/1122200690
