‘Nightborne’: Neill Blomkamp Shares Sci-Fi Horror Short Made Entirely With AI

Well, this was a tad surprising, but South African-Canadian filmmaker Neill Blomkamp, known for movies such as “District 9,” “Elysium,” and “Chappie,” has dropped what he’s claiming is a “full test AI film” called “Nightborne,” and it clocks in at just over 13 minutes, a short of sorts. Blomkamp revealed that he used Seedance 2.0 to create the footage, which seems to mix science fiction and horror, with his well-established military elements.

“‘Nightborne’ is the first full test AI film I have made. It was made using Seedance 2.0. I’ve been experimenting with AI for a couple of years, and it’s now at the point where I want to tackle a full feature in this format. This is a 13-minute test start. It was made with real concept artists and features the faces and voices of 32 real people. Barley Studios will be my new AI studio for creating my own films, the way Oats Studios was for traditional film and VFX,” Blomkamp stated in a social media post.

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A logline for the short film:

“A U.S. Army pilot is shot down and declared killed in action. Her husband buries an empty casket. The tapes say otherwise. ‘Nightborne’ is a 13-minute sci-fi horror film from director Neill Blomkamp — the first release from Barley Studios. Told as a documentary: interviews, recovered program footage, and the recordings of a scientist who walked out of a classified defense program that puts dead soldiers back on the battlefield.”

This comes as we’ve seen filmmakers like Darren Aronofsky, Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, Doug Liman, and others embracing/testing the technology despite the outcry from Hollywood unions (fearing job erasure), widespread blacklash for those who don’t want to support the technology spewing out sub-par entertainment, and a growing gorup of environmentalists (from across the political spectrum), the latter with folks like Erin Brockovich (yes, that Erin Brockovich, the subject of a Soderbergh movie starring Julia Roberts) among their ranks, who is being vocal about the disastrous environmental impact AI data centers and potential health harm they’ll have on local residents.

Last year, Blomkamp had been enlisted by Sony Pictures to help reboot the “Starship Troopers” franchise, which is based on the Robert A. Heinlein novel (influenced sci-fi projects such as “Aliens,” “Halo,” and the mecha genre that is mega-popular in Japan) and saw a feature film helmed by Paul Verhoeven that was released in theaters 1997, the satrical action flick would get fully embraced by audiences on home video. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that studio IP pic sticks after things like “Alien 5” and “RoboCop Returns” didn’t get past the development phases, although we’re still waiting on a status update on that one.

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You can view that AI short below, although we don’t really know what the actual point of this experiment is other than posting to YouTube. Previously, we’ve seen Blomkamp use Oats Studios to put together some excellent shorts, but those were mostly done with traditional VFX and bare-bones filming techniques.

NIGHTBORNE is the first full test AI film I have made. It was made using Seedance 2.0.

I've been experimenting with AI for a couple of years, and it's now at the point where I want to tackle a full feature in this format. This is a 13-minute test start.

It was made with real… pic.twitter.com/mtnGt12qfP

— Neill Blomkamp (@NeillBlomkamp) July 20, 2026