AI oversight or permission denied? 'Rekhachithram' director responds to new finding by fans

Jofin T Chacko's 'Rekhachithram', featuring Anaswara and Asif Ali in the lead, has received critical acclaim for its use of AI technology and impressive storyline. While the film is also garnering a lot of praise after its OTT release, some fans were quick to point out that the makers could have made the movie more realistic had they incorporated AI to create the younger version of Lizzy and Saritha during the song scene involving a young Mammootty (created through AI) in the film. 

The scene was recreated from the sets of the 1985 movie 'Kathodu Kathoram', which originally showed Lizzy (who played Sister Theresa) and Saritha (Marykutty) singing alongside Mammootty. One person sarcastically noted, on Threads, how the director only thought about Mammootty, while conveniently forgetting Saritha and Lizzie in the AI scene. However, others were quick to come to the director's defense and stated that the makers may not have received permission from both actors Saritha and Lizzie.

However, Jofin told Onmanorama that he decided not to use AI to recreate the other lead characters in 'Kathodu Kathoram' owing to the difficulty involved in the process. "People may assume it may be easy to recreate all the characters and scenes using AI, but let me assure you, it is not. We took a deliberate decision not to recreate these characters," he said.

In a previous interview, the director had said they had to delete four AI-enabled scenes in the movie, because it was not convincing. He also said he felt the existing AI scenes in the movie could have been improved. "AI poses huge risks and maybe this could be improved in the future," he said adding that they conducted several trials before finalising each AI scene in the movie.