Baska Sinema is putting an AI-generated film into conventional theatrical slots. The Turkish arthouse distributor has acquired domestic rights to A Woman Asleep, an experimental English-language feature directed by AI artist and filmmaker Vikki Bardot. The 80-minute drama is set for a spring 2027 release across 20 cities in Turkey.
Produced by Turkish AI production studio Spongeworthy, the project follows the studio’s AI-generated documentary Post Truth, which also received a theatrical release through Baska Sinema. The film is inspired by the 1974 French cult title The Man Who Sleeps, and its synopsis frames it as a meditation on alienation and numbness in an age of hyper-connectivity.
The production team edited the feature from a pool of 50,000 individual shots over two years. Its narration uses an AI voice clone trained on Bardot’s own voice, a decision the promotional materials say places the audio “between the human and the synthetic.”
Why this is a distribution story
For ScreenStat readers, the news is not that AI can generate imagery. It is that a niche distributor is treating an AI title as cinema to programme, market and sell tickets for. A theatrical release carries costs and audience expectations that a festival screening or streaming upload does not.
Baska Sinema director Armagan Lale framed the acquisition around creative control rather than technology. The distributor is interested in “how filmmakers use new tools to expand the expressive possibilities of cinema,” he said. Bardot made a similar point, saying the most interesting use of AI is “giving independent filmmakers the freedom to make personal, formally ambitious films” that might otherwise go unfinanced.
- 80 minutes, English-language, set for 20 Turkish cities in spring 2027.
- 50,000 individual shots cut down over two years of editing.
- AI voice clone trained on the director’s own voice handles narration.
- Spongeworthy, the producer, previously placed the AI documentary Post Truth with the same distributor.
The 20-city plan is small by commercial standards but meaningful for arthouse AI. It suggests exhibitors are willing to book the title rather than treat it as a one-off screening. Bardot’s earlier short Dreamt by Another screened at more than 20 festivals and was acquired by Mubi for Turkey, so there is already some audience recognition around her work.
The test ahead
The real question is whether AI-led features can move from curiosity to repeatable theatrical product. The path here is instructive: a recognised AI artist, a producer with a track record, and a distributor that already has experience selling AI work to Turkish audiences. That combination reduces the novelty risk and shifts attention to positioning, programming density and audience turnout.
For entertainment marketers and media planners, this is a useful signal to track. AI-generated cinema is starting to be judged by the same release mechanics as any independent title: window, city count, marketing message and box office. The technology may be new, but the commercial test is familiar.
Source: Variety
