A water spirit on a screen the size of a building
I was sitting in the Science Museum IMAX in London, watching a little Swedish folk tale about a water spirit and a violin fill a screen that size. It was a strange and wonderful feeling.
NIX was just an idea we wanted to explore at the house. Then suddenly it was up there, in front of a full room. Watch the film here.
Nix: one of the scary fairy tales we grew up with
Most Swedish kids knows about Näcken, or Nix. He’s a water spirit who sits in streams and waterfalls and plays the violin so beautifully that you forget yourself, and walk into the water. In some versions he’ll teach you to play like him. But it always comes at a price.
That’s the core of our film. A young man goes to the waterfall to learn the violin from Nix. He gets what he asked for. And then he pays.
These are the stories we grew up with: the fairy tales told to keep children away from deep water and dark forests. They’re beautiful and terrifying at the same time. And they’re perfect for AI film, because they live in the same place the medium does, somewhere between dream and image.
NIX is the pilot for BERGTAGEN, an anthology series built on Swedish folklore. Bergtagen means “taken into the mountain”, what happened to people who were lured away by the creatures under the hill. We’re planning ten episodes, each a different creature and a different price.
The night: 0.1 points
I’ll admit I spent the first part of the night just waiting for it to come on. I didn’t hear much of what was said. I barely saw the films before ours. If you’ve ever had something of yours screened, you know the feeling.
Then it played. And once I could breathe again, I got to properly enjoy everyone else’s films. There was so much good stuff. Comedies, horror, strange poetic things nobody could have made three years ago. Every film was its own answer to the same question: what is this new medium actually for?
All the winners and shortlisted films are collected here, and they’re well worth a look.
And the drama: NIX came second on the Greenlight, 0.1 points behind the winner. One tenth of a point. Am I bitter? Not at all. Honestly, it’s a perfect ending for a film about a price you have to pay. It’s what we live for!
Big congrats to Pablo F. Martin, Gent Winston Mayo, Amir Levi-Krone, Dominika Aurelia Korycka and Christian Luoma on their wins.
A huge thank you to Aaron Jones, Isy Imarni, Ariel Tang, Diya Liu and all the sponsors for creating a night like that: Big Screen Hack, Fairground, Story Machine AI, OpenClips, Picsart, ElevenLabs, Wonder Studios, Token360, Topaz Labs, AI Movie Awards, AI/CC Artificial Intelligence Creative Community, RecDek and Mujastudios.
What’s next for NIX
The Nix isn’t done with us yet:
- 28 October: NIX screens as a finalist in Curious Refuge‘s Horror Competition. That’s where it all began for us, so it means a lot.
- 30 October: NIX is an official selection at MACABRE & MAYHEM, Escape’s horror fest, online.
- 7-8 November: NIX is also a finalist at the AI Movie Awards in London.
And meanwhile we’re building out BERGTAGEN, one creature at a time.
— Christian, The Awarehouse Studio