# 100'000 KNIVES

AI-made. Made with AI, as its festival says: “The 2026 edition of the Artefact AI Film Festival — an international competition for short films made with generative AI, organised by Artefact with mk2.” ([its page](https://artefact-ai-film-festival.com/), read 2026-11-12).

By Flavio Papa, as [Artefact AI Film Festival](https://artefact-ai-film-festival.com/gallery) names them.

A man hidden behind a white mask speaks of his life with unsettling composure. After moving at fifteen, he never quite knew where to stand. Working in a small Chinese restaurant gave him something he could trust: the precision of a blade, the discipline of a gesture, a place for every object. What began as a practical skill became a way of making the world bearable.

100’000 KNIVES takes the form of an intimate interview with someone who never existed. As his account unfolds, photographs, shadows and impossible rooms expose a private architecture of belonging. The knives hold an ambiguity: objects that suggest danger become instruments of care, repetition and reassurance. In a grainy black-and-white world, a quiet confession reveals the emotional weight of arranging things that, unlike people, stay where they are put.

Plays in Vimeo's player, on Vimeo, by the link its maker gave the festival: [watch it there](https://vimeo.com/1237116778).