In Episode 5 of the DOK Industry Podcast, the European Creators’ Lab Head of Studies and creative producer and director Mads Damsbo joins podcast host Weronika Lewandowska in reflecting on the power and promise of generative AI for documentary and XR storytelling in the backdrop of the AI-driven creative revolution.

Following one of the main themes of this year’s DOK Exchange XR programme on AI and its impact on storytelling, this episode delves into the essence of the AI-human creative exchange, and how it can reinvent the art of storytelling. The episode enters the captivating realm of a broader AI-human cooperation from the perspective and practice of Damsbo, the creative technologist behind the groundbreaking film “About a Hero”, written by AI. The film’s production has led to the development of a new tool for filmmakers, Kaspar AI.

In this episode, Damsbo and Lewandowska ultimately take us on a contemplative journey through a remarkable vista of AI as well as new narrative pathways that it offers, transcending the bounds of human imagination with new AI tools. This discussion also leads us to sobering questions that the use of these tools poses and varied concerns that are raised by the creators.

Mads Damsbo is a creative producer and director who has always found himself on the bleeding-edge of the development of new media experiences and powerful narratives that utilise pioneering technology. He is currently producing a number of immersive projects, including most recently the first feature-length film written by AI, “About a Hero”. He is the founder of Makropol and CEO and creative producer at Kaspar AI, a company focused on using AI to co-create AV storytelling. He is Head of Studies at the European Creators’ Lab and is this year’s DOK Exchange XR Conference speaker.

Weronika Lewandowska has been the coordinator of DOK Leipzig’s DOK Exchange XR programme since 2022. She is the co-director, writer, and executive producer of the VR experience “Nightsss”. She has served as a mentor for the Climate Challenge XR project for the European Space Agency/Science Now and as an Expert of the Committee for Innovative Film Projects at the National Film Institute in Poland. She is also a writer of XR climate change games for Guest XR, an international research project on the AI agent for harmony in social XR environments (the Institute of Social Studies at the Warsaw University).

The DOK Industry podcasts are produced in collaboration with What’s Up with Docs and the Programmers of Colour Collective (POC2), with the support of Docs-in-Orbit and MUBI, and funding from Creative Europe, BKM, MDM and the City of Leipzig.

Listen to the podcast episode: DOK Industry Podcasts