"Aren’t we losing those things that define us as human beings?" : Hirokazu Kore-eda returns to Cannes with a film on AI to talk about humans

Palme d’Or in 2018 with A family affairHirokazu Kore-eda could well win a second one with this fable in which he imagines an astonishing marriage between the plant world and technology, to talk about family, mourning and what defines us as humans in the age of AI. Sheep in the boxpresented in Cannes on Saturday May 16, will be released in theaters on December 16, 2026.

Sheep in the box – the title is an allusion to the sheep drawn in his cardboard by Saint-Exupéry – tells the story of a couple devastated by the death of their little boy. To console themselves, they give in to the temptation of renting a humanoid, a carbon copy of their son, made from photos and memories that they sent to the company that manufactures them. But who really is this Kakeru? Will his presence allow his parents to console themselves and heal the guilt that is gnawing at them?

What is the meaning of this fable? A few hours before climbing the steps with his team, the Japanese director enlightens us in an interview with franceinfo Culture on this film, full of poetry, which asks metaphysical questions about our condition as human beings.

Franceinfo Culture: How was the idea for this film born?
Hirokazu Kore-eda: About two years ago, I read a little article that talked about a certain business in China, extremely popular, that was using generative AI to bring back the dead among us. And so then I decided to meet the boss of this company and he told me a little about his initiative. Listening to it, I remembered the regret I had when I lost my parents, how I would have liked to say a few more words to them. And so I said to myself that ultimately, if this technique advances and there are more and more people who can have access to it, I completely understand the feelings of those who would like to have access to this technology and use it. And at the same time, it raised an ethical question for me. I wondered if we, the living, had the right, just for convenience, to fit our agendas or for personal and somewhat selfish reasons, to use the dead. This thought led me to this question: Who do the dead belong to?

Why did you choose a robot child, and not an adult?
The initial idea was that the parents would keep this child for a year and spend time with him. This gave the possibility of making a very compact story that remained confined within the family. Through their daily life with the humanoid child, the film tells how we can say goodbye to the dead. It is also a metaphor for parents learning when to let their child leave the nest. And as I really wanted to express this idea that parents must let their children go one day, it was essential that the humanoid character be a child, a child who will surpass his parents and emancipate himself.

Isn’t this AI story a pretext to talk about humanity?
Yes, and three times yes, absolutely, you are completely right. This story is not at all here to talk about the risks of AI, but rather to wonder what will remain of humans if AI were to surpass human beings. The idea was therefore rather to question what defines our humanity. What makes us human beings? And these things, precisely, which define us as human beings, are we not already losing them? This is what is the deep questioning of this work.

The little humanoid is interested in trees, the forest, nature, it’s paradoxical, isn’t it?
I don’t know if it’s a paradox. In a book on vegetation in general, I discovered that there was this communication that existed between the trees, whether at the level of the roots or the foliage. A communication that allowed them to maintain this network, which ultimately became the forest and that a form of intelligence, a system of intelligence existed within these plants. And if we observe the functioning of generative AI, it is closer to trees and the forest than to us, human beings. The communication, the links that exist between humanoids is invisible, as with trees. It is this similarity that made me make this connection.

At the end, the children, humanoid and non-humanoid, go into the forest, is this an optimistic vision for the future?
Obviously this place towards which the children, whether humanoid or human, tend, is a place of happiness for them. Nevertheless, the human children in this group are children who have suffered violence and who have been abandoned by their parents, and the humanoids, ultimately, have been used by the human beings. By leaving, they free themselves from those who use them. In that sense, it is not very positive, or utopian. Adult human beings are absolutely not invited to stay there and they are forced to return to their lives, and they are going to have to move forward with their lives, even if the child has left them, or left this world. And that’s the meaning of this little tree that they planted in their garden. The parents accept that their child is no longer there, was never there despite the presence of this humanoid. They will be able to feel, thanks to the imagination, the presence of their child through this young tree which will grow. And ultimately, this is perhaps the key, the way to move forward despite the departure of the children, is to keep the imagination.

It’s about construction and architecture in your film, is it a metaphor for what you wanted to tell in this film, and for the filmmaker’s work?
Architects try to combine materials that are completely different, for example wood and glass. This is what is difficult about their job, but at the same time, it is also what makes their job interesting. And I think it’s close to my conception of cinema. In my film also there is this attempt to combine materials or things that are completely different: the living and the dead, wood and glass, humans and technology, the exterior and the interior. This motif of architecture, of the house, translates well this idea of connecting, of making all these things coexist. very different in the same space.

To find a form of harmony?
Yes, that’s it.