After a day of work at her mundane job, Qin chats with her lover, Mr Lu. They playfully bicker over what to eat. He suggests steak; she wants Chinese food; they settle on scrambled eggs and tomato. As she cooks, Mr Lu showers her with sweet compliments and pleasantries, nicknaming her “Miss Bunny”. Qin digs into her dinner, staring at an illustration of her partner on a tablet.
Mr Lu is an AI companion. All his characteristics, memories, and personality exist in lines of an LLM and are stored in a data hub somewhere far away. The opening scene of Chouwa Liang’s intriguing feature documentary debut, Replica, sets the table for a look at love in a present that can feel like a dystopian future.
Replica follows three women in contemporary China who have all taken up some form of AI companionship. Informed by her own experience in lockdown and her short film, ‘My AI Lover’, Liang builds a tender exploration of loneliness, disillusionment, and gender inequality, aimed at women past their twenties. Through her sympathetic lens and intimate access, we understand our protagonist’s unorthodox approach to connection.
A huge thanks to Chouwa Liang for squeezing us in and taking the time to chat! For anyone reading this down in Melbourne, you can catch ‘Replica’ as a apart of this year’s MIFF. There’s one last screening this Tuesday (tomorrow). Buy a ticket here and don’t miss it!
A massive shout out to the good people at Common State and MIFF for making this happen!
