At present, watching a piece of foreign language content that’s been dubbed in English an exercise in discomfort. Thanks to the proliferation of local-language film and TV — brought to us mostly by streaming platforms — the experience of viewing a dubbed Danish crime procedural or a Spanish boarding school soap opera are nightmarish trips to the Uncanny Valley. That’s the term widely used for technology that does not suspend our disbelief and, in fact, takes human resemblance and tosses it into a blender of dystopian nightmares.
Enter Flawless , an AI-driven filmmaking studio that wants you to stream buzzy shows and still be able to sleep at night (sans visions of mismatching mouth movements and brutal scene cuts). Founded in 2018 by multi-hyphenate director Scott Mann and Nick Lynes, Flawless’ proprietary tech TrueSync maps over the faces of actors and delivers translations that are the most impressive we’ve seen in the wild west of AI. The company previewed a sizzle reel of its work at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which Variety can exclusively share here.
Designed to protect artistic copyrights and comply with Hollywood labor guilds, Flawless raises big questions about the value of international content and its breakthrough potential in U.S. markets.
Variety can also report that Flawless is officially in the film distribution game. The company has entered a joint venture with XYZ Films and Tea Shop Productions to acquire foreign film rights. The partnersh.
