The directors frame AI not as cold technology but as an act of radical honesty—using algorithmic assistance to strip away sentimentality and force audiences into uncomfortable territory where mental suffering meets systemic neglect.
Insiders at Venice whisper that the film has divided programmers: some see a genuinely groundbreaking marriage of form and politics, while others detect pretension masquerading as innovation. The AI element remains controversial in arthouse circles where authenticity debates rage.
Premiere date: September 2026 at Venice Critics' Week (the independent section running parallel to the main festival). Directors confirmed: Bibiana Rojas Gómez and Juan David Cárdenas Maldonado, both Colombian filmmakers working in experimental essay cinema.
Whether you find The End of Times illuminating or insufferable likely depends on how much patience you have for films that demand emotional labor. But one thing's certain—these directors aren't interested in comfortable viewing.
There's a particular kind of film that arrives at festivals like Venice and immediately ignites arguments in hotel bars at midnight. THE END OF TIMES, the AI-assisted experimental essay from Colombian filmmakers Bibiana Rojas Gómez and Juan David Cárdenas Maldonado, appears destined for exactly that fate. The film—premiering this week in the prestigious Venice Critics' Week sidebar—follows a character named Salomé as she sifts through decades of family footage, searching for the origins of her mother's persistent sadness. On its surface, it's classic autobiographical territory: a daughter excavating the past to understand present damage. But the directors have layered something far more provocative into this personal archaeology. The film's stated ambition is nothing less than to "politicize mental illness"—to argue that individual psychological suffering cannot be separated from systemic forces, institutional failures, and generational silence. Using AI assistance in their editing process, Rojas Gómez and Cárdenas Maldonado treat the technology not as a gimmick but as a philosophical statement: what does it mean to let an algorithm help you understand your mother's pain? The machine sees patterns humans might miss—or perhaps reveals patterns that don't actually exist. This is bold territory for any filmmaker, particularly in an industry still wrestling with how AI should factor into creative work. Critics have spent years debating whether artificial intelligence represents liberation or threat to artistic authenticity; THE END OF TIMES sidesteps this abstraction by making the debate literal. The film doesn't just use AI—it interrogates what it means to outsource memory and emotion to something without a soul. Venice Critics' Week has long served as a launchpad for voices that challenge conventional filmmaking, and these Colombian directors clearly intend to occupy that space. Whether audiences leave their premiere feeling enlightened or exhausted remains to be seen—but based on the film's ambition alone, no one will walk away indifferent. That's either the mark of genuine artistry or spectacular overreach, depending on who you ask. The conversation around mental health has increasingly demanded recognition of its political dimensions: how poverty, violence, and institutional failures compound individual suffering. THE END OF TIMES appears to take this argument literally, visualizing it through a daughter's desperate search for answers in grainy home movies and fragmented recollections. It's the kind of project that could redefine experimental cinema's capacity for social critique—or dissolve into self-indulgent navel-gazing. We'll know which by the time the Venice giuria renders its verdict.
