Make Believe
AI-generated film by Montlouis Mane · 2026 · 13 min · Fantasy, Action
About the film
In 1991, an unexpected stop at a desert antique shop leads a boy to a mysterious viewer—and an adventure through his own imagination. MAKE BELIEVE is an AI fantasy short film inspired by the movies we watched as kids that made us want to make movies. DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT Make Believe charts, more or less, my own journey learning to make films with generative AI over the past two years. There’s the initial discovery, a little intimidation, and then this sense of wonder as you learn what you can do. Eventually, you start to feel like you can direct where you want to go. I grew up making movies with my brother, with action figures and a VHS camcorder, editing everything on the tape. I became an actor, but eventually my life took a different path. Working with these tools has brought me back to something I loved as a kid. There’s a bittersweet feeling in that: being grateful to have found it again, and wishing I’d allowed it more room in all those years between. For this film, I wante
Future Lantern score
80 out of 100, based on how much YouTube viewers like the film, weighted by audience size. 198,357 views and 3,151 likes on YouTube.
Watch on YouTube. Hosted on YouTube by Montlouis Mane; Future Lantern links to the original upload.