Hirokazu Kore-eda

Hirokazu Kore-eda (born 1962) is a Japanese director and screenwriter, widely regarded as the great humanist of contemporary cinema. His studies of improvised families — Nobody Knows, Like Father, Like Son, and the Palme d’Or-winning Shoplifters (2018) — made him one of the most honored filmmakers of his generation.

Sheep in the Box

His 2026 Cannes competition entry, Sheep in the Box, centers on bereaved parents who welcome an android recreation of their dead son into their home. Kore-eda was inspired by meeting a Chinese entrepreneur building AI simulations of the deceased — “resurrected dead” who were not just replaying the past but forming new relationships. His question: “Is it really acceptable for the living to manipulate the existence of the dead however they please?”

Researching the film, he tested AI on himself, asking ChatGPT to evaluate his script. The verdict was underwhelming — “it didn’t give me any unexpected answers” — though he allowed that it may someday produce something “really surprising and compelling.” He also cautioned that if filmmakers lean on AI and virtual studios purely for efficiency, movies will start looking similar and lose their creative edge.

Yet when asked about Hollywood’s push to ban AI outright, Kore-eda demurred: total rejection, he said in a June 2026 interview, seems to lack significant meaning — what matters is the creator’s inquiry. It is a characteristically undogmatic position: use the tool where it serves the questions only humans ask, and never mistake its answers for the work.