AI and VFX in the Service of History
Combining generative artificial intelligence with VFX, with the support of Małgorzata Imielska — a director and lecturer at the Łódź Film School — we told the story of a 127-year road to freedom carried by generations of people from Greater Poland.
The film follows successive generations of people from Greater Poland — from the events of the late 18th century, through 19th-century uprisings and resistance to Germanisation, to the victorious Greater Poland Uprising of 1918–1919 and the Polish-Soviet War.
At the heart of the story is a promise made in 1794. At the grave of his father, who died in an uprising, a young man from Greater Poland vows that when the Prussians are driven out, he will travel to Poznań — the city of his grandparents — and raise his family flag in the Market Square. The promise passes through successive generations together with the memory of history and the desire to regain freedom.
The script, direction, selection of archival materials, music, sound design, VFX and editing are the work of people. Apart from the film's framing sequence, every shot and voice was created using artificial intelligence.
AI was above all a production tool in this project. Recreating more than a century of history conventionally — different eras, battles, costumes and locations — would have required a budget in the millions. By using AI, with the support of Izol Poznań, we could bring the production scale closer to the ambition of the screenplay while staying within a realistic AI film production budget.
At the beginning of 2025, generative AI still had serious limitations. The film could not have been made in this form without the support of VFX. Visual effects helped preserve the continuity of the story, unify successive shots and correct imperfections in the generated material.
MotionVFX — the Polish developer of plugins for Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve that became part of Apple in 2026 — recognised the way its tools were used in “The Promise”. The company praised the “excellent and well-balanced use” of its effects, noting that they had been “applied with taste and without excess”. It called the combination of VFX with generated video “spot on” and summed up the film with the words: “A perfect concept and execution!”