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The $500K AI Film That "Premiered at Cannes" Was Not in the Official Festival

Last week an AI startup called Higgsfield announced it had premiered a fully AI-generated feature film at Cannes. The Wall Street Journal covered it. The founder posted on LinkedIn that "for decades, Cannes has been the room where new cinema gets legitimized." The story spread fast. There was one problem. Cannes said it never happened. "We can confirm that 'Hell Grind' was not screened as part of the official Festival de Cannes program," a festival spokesperson said. The film was shown at a paid third-party screening at a local theater in the town of Cannes during the festival period. That's a meaningfully different thing and the distinction matters because the entire credibility of the announcement rested on the Cannes name. This deserves the attention because it's a clean example of how AI hype gets manufactured and how quickly it travels before anyone checks.

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