Jia Zhangke's Next Film Will Skip AI Entirely

Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke is preparing a new road movie starring longtime collaborator Zhao Tao, and says the production will steer clear of artificial intelligence tools altogether.

Jia Zhangke is moving into location scouting and production design for his next feature, a road movie titled "Mamma Dunhuang," once his Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival concludes on September 30. The film centers on a woman who sets off driving from Dunhuang, a city in western China near the region's border with Central Asia, on a journey that carries her all the way to the coast. Zhao Tao, who has appeared in many of Jia's best-known works and is also his wife, will take on the lead role. Details on the rest of the cast and the film's broader scope have not been disclosed. What stands out in this announcement, confirmed exclusively by Variety, is Jia's explicit stance against incorporating artificial intelligence into the filmmaking process. He stated plainly, "I will not use AI in making Mamma Dunhuang," drawing a clear line as AI-assisted production tools become increasingly common across the film industry. Jia's comment arrives amid a broader wave of debate in global cinema over how much AI should factor into visual effects, editing, and even performance capture. By ruling out the technology for his upcoming project, Jia positions "Mamma Dunhuang" as a deliberately traditional production, at least in terms of tools, even as the industry around him continues experimenting with generative techniques.