Through her eyes
On making art with AI, and the love that carries us through time.
With Sappho’s Odyssey, I want two thousand years of love and loss to feel as intimate as a hand resting against a face.
At its heart is the love between Sappho and Persephone. Sappho is an immortal Greek statue, watching the world change around her. I’m drawn to the tenderness of queer love lasting through those changes. Her body may survive centuries, but she can still be broken, carried away, separated from the one she loves. Even with all the time in the world, she can miss someone.
The film begins as a sculptor finishes her. With the last strike of the chisel, we enter her eyes. From there, a hand close by can matter as much as a palace in the distance. Staying with her gaze lets an enormous world feel unexpectedly close. She cannot turn her head. The person she loves might be just beyond the frame.
Working with AI gives me room to try these ideas in images. In Absurd, I talk with the agent about what I’m feeling my way toward. How close do the statues stand? What can Sappho see of Persephone? A fingertip against a cheek became a gesture to return to, something tender enough to carry across the years.
Where the light lingers
Tarkovsky and Angelopoulos are touchstones for me. I’m drawn to patient images: a figure in a landscape, weather passing through, light lingering on a face. I want the world around Sappho to invite that kind of attention. Grain, wind and worn stone help me imagine somewhere we could almost step into.
I keep landscapes, characters and textures together in Absurd’s References. They give the conversation with the agent something to return to as the images change. A broken forearm can be a small point of recognition. We’ve travelled somewhere new, and here is the same body, carrying its history.
I asked the agent to research the sculpture, and we explored poses connected to the period. In the garden, I looked for balance and a little irregularity. I wanted to imagine a sculptor spending an afternoon there, someone passing through. Those ordinary lives help a distant world feel warm.
I want to make a film with AI that someone can feel in their body.
Time comes around
Time feels circular to me in this story. Lovers come together and are torn apart; empires rise and fall. Sappho keeps watching. Across all those lives, the wish to be close to someone returns. Love somehow endures. I want us to feel the sweep of history, then recognise a familiar tenderness inside it.
As the script and images changed, I worked with the agent on the rhythm between those moments. Sometimes the film moves through an age; sometimes I want to stay with a face. Having the shots together on the canvas lets me try both, and see where a moment needs a little more room.
What the sea remembers
On the seabed, Sappho lies on her side. I asked for the world to tilt with her, so the seabed runs vertically through the frame. It is an awkward, helpless view. Staying there brings us close to her longing: even here, she is looking toward the person she loves.
We chose a frame and explored the years around it. Seaweed gathers on the marble. Coins settle into the sand. With the agent, I could try small changes while keeping Persephone in the same place. I wanted to feel the length of that wait, the slow weathering of a body that goes on loving.
I returned to the cart sequence with the agent to give Sappho’s broken arm a brief shot of its own. I wanted us to feel that loss before carrying it into the next scene. The damage stays with her as she travels.
A gesture
A point of view
The weight of being held
People lower Sappho onto a plinth. I wanted small sways and hesitations, the care of hands adjusting to her weight. Her arm stays still in our view while the world moves behind it. I’m hoping for a feeling we know in our own bodies: being carried, then finding somewhere to rest.
I worked through that movement with the agent, separating the lowering from Hadrian’s approach to Antinous. It gave me space to linger with each. After the weight of the stone comes the quiet anticipation of one person moving toward another.
Within reach again
In the museum, the curator’s face echoes the sculptor’s. Centuries later, someone is tending to the same figures. I’m drawn to that return. The film finds its way back to a pair of hands caring for them, and this time those hands bring them together.
By then, the years are there on their faces. A seam circles Sappho’s neck. Pieces of the marble are missing. I kept those traces in the images because I wanted to meet them as they are now. The joy of finding each other again can hold all that has happened to them.
The curator turns Sappho, and Persephone comes into view. I worked with the agent on where that movement begins and where it ends. I wanted to give the waiting a little space, then let the familiar face appear. At last, we step outside Sappho’s eyes and see them together.
I want to make a film with AI that someone can feel in their body. A face made of stone might bring them back to their own heartbreak, or to a person they still carry with them. I hope the care that goes into these images reaches someone as a feeling they recognise.
In my notes, I called the ending “bittersweet and relieved”. The curator can step away. Sappho and Persephone are within reach again, after all those lives and all those partings. I want to leave them there a little while, with all the time in the world.
Q&A with Robin Wang
Edited from a conversation for length and clarity
- Coming from a traditional filmmaking background, what first drew you to AI, and how has your perspective changed?
Robin WangI think we’re living in a time of great change, something not very different from the Industrial Revolutions. Being on the frontier of learning what is new is important, not just for filmmakers but for everyone. What drew me to AI was learning how it could change my process, creativity, and outlook.
For me the question is what is constant and what is changing? The constant is the human desire to create, tell stories, and move people emotionally. The tools evolve, from cave paintings and sculptures to Renaissance paintings, photography, and computer-generated imagery, but that desire is unchanged. Over the past few months I’ve enjoyed being part of this evolution. The technology is moving at a mind-blowing speed, and rather than feel confused by it, I think we should embrace the change.
- How has AI changed your filmmaking process? What can you do now that you couldn’t do before?
Everyone has a personal relationship with AI, and how much to integrate it is up to the individual. For me it still begins with the desire to tell a story that moves people. With Sappho’s Odyssey, I asked what kind of story could uniquely be told with AI. It opened up a perspective, seeing across centuries through the eyes of a statue, that would be very difficult in live action or conventional animation. It let me combine intimacy with scale.
It felt like an organic dance with AI. Yet the elements that stir raw human emotion remain deeply human: music, editing, sound design, and the decisions behind them. AI gave me the possibility of voyaging across the ages from a new perspective.
- Where does Absurd fit into your workflow, from developing an idea to bringing it to life?
That depends on the project. On my live-action short Midnight Ramblings, Absurd was integral to previsualization. For films requiring elaborate world-building and visual design, it helps stretch the imagination and clarify the vision before you communicate or pitch it to collaborators.
For hybrid and fully AI-created work, I appreciate how user-friendly and organized Absurd is. It aligns with creative work, from beat sheets and assets to pages, project structures, and team collaboration. Over time you develop a relationship with an agent that understands how you work, almost like a creative partner. I see AI as both a creativity tool and a productivity tool. Absurd reduces friction across drafts, video generation, feedback, and complicated workflows so I can focus on making the work.
