Eight artists have turned a single script by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Efthimis Filippou into eight radically different short films, using AI tools as their medium. The project, called HUMANCENTRIC, comes from creative production partner MikeTeevee and puts the question of creative authorship squarely in focus: if everyone has the same technology, what separates one artist from another?
Filippou, whose credits include The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Kinds of Kindness, wrote an original scene about a washed-up Lieutenant confronting a barman over the murder of his family. MikeTeevee then gave that script to eight artists - Reo, Doopiidoo, Infrarouge, Veronika Pell (Mindeye), David Szauder, Blumquist, Gizem Akdag, and MikeTeevee's own VFX team - with one rule: the dialogue stays, everything else is open.
The results move through surreal, noir and uncanny worlds. Characters change. Settings shift. Visual languages diverge completely, even though every artist started from the same text and the same technological toolkit.
Eight interpretations, one script
The brief was deliberately simple. Artists could change characters, settings, genres and entire visual worlds, but the dialogue had to remain intact. That constraint created a natural experiment: the same words, filtered through eight different creative sensibilities.
For Filippou, the project echoed something he learned across two decades of screenwriting. "When I started writing scripts 20 years ago, I was really annoyed by the fact that the film created had nothing to do with what I had imagined," he said. "Now I know that 'this had nothing to do with what I had imagined' is the best thing that can happen to a script. And to know it happened eight times, what a pleasure."
The project also functions as a platform, not just a film series. Its first immersive installation treated the audience as a ninth artist: visitors spun a Wheel of Fortune to choose one of the eight films, then entered a curtained booth to watch their selection. The installation itself became another layer of interpretation.
What AI actually changes
MikeTeevee founder Ellen Utrecht positions the project against the hype cycle around generative tools. "AI gives more people access to increasingly powerful creative capabilities," she said. "But the technology isn't the most interesting part. HUMANCENTRIC wondered what would make the difference if everyone has access to the same tools. The answer, for us, is still human perspective, curiosity, and the choices you make."
That framing matters for working creatives who are being told, from every direction, that AI will either replace them or make them obsolete. The project's structure suggests a different answer: the technology standardizes capability, but it does not standardize taste, judgment or point of view.
For creatives exploring these tools, the practical takeaway is straightforward. The differentiator is not which AI video platform you use - it's the decisions you make before and after the tool does its work. What you choose to keep, change, discard or push against is where the authorship lives. If you want to develop that skill deliberately, AI filmmaking programs can help you build the technical foundation, while AI for creatives courses focus on the creative direction side of the process - the part that HUMANCENTRIC suggests remains irreducibly human.
Why this matters for creatives
HUMANCENTRIC is not a demonstration that AI can make films. It is a demonstration that AI cannot make your film. Eight artists with identical inputs produced eight outputs that share almost nothing beyond their dialogue. That is the working reality of AI-assisted creative production: the tool amplifies intent, but it does not supply it.
The project gives creatives a useful frame for their own practice. When you work with AI, the question is not "what can this tool do?" but "what am I choosing to do with it?" The answer to that second question is what clients, audiences and collaborators will ultimately pay for.
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