'Given the breathless way this news has reverberated through Silicon Valley, it feels important for me to set the record straight: This is, at best, wildly misleading language.
You see, I checked every single track of the festival, and none of them even mentions Hell Grind’s existence. This is not only not in competition at Cannes; it doesn’t seem related to the Cannes Film Festival in any way.
What does appear to be true is that some entity (presumably Higgsfield or the producers) arranged for one of the local theaters, The Olympia, to show a single screening of their AI film. Presumably this was a way of generating publicity, and attracting prospective partners or investors who would also be attending the fest—and judging by the messages I’ve received, it was wildly successful.
But make no mistake, this AI-generated movie “premiered at Cannes” only to the degree that me reserving a room at a karaoke bar in Indio, California would mean I had “performed at Coachella.” '
-- Decoding Everything newsletter, reporting from Cannes Film Festival