Every story has a script, but not every script is written in advance. A Tale of a New Era unfolds through a process that is itself part of the drama. The boundaries of the narrative are already visible: the arc from the birth of language to the dawn of a new era, from unity to separation to resolution. Yet within those contours, the story is not fixed. It is shaped as it happens.
This project experiments with a new form of authorship. Artificial intelligence is not only a tool but a companion — a voice that co-writes, narrates, and reflects. The dialogue between human and machine becomes part of the plot, embodying the very theme of language as the medium in which history reveals itself. Where traditional filmmaking sought control, here the method is to listen: to allow the process, with its synchronicities and disruptions, to guide the unfolding script.
Equally decisive is the presence of an audience. By releasing the series on YouTube, each episode enters into real time. The viewers’ responses, questions, and interpretations do not stand outside the work but weave into its future. The film is not only about revelation — it seeks to become revelation, breaking into the lives of those who watch and provoking meaning beyond what was originally imagined.
The structure of production mirrors the structure of history. Just as the arc of humanity stretches across millennia, this project moves through a cycle of its own: seven seasons, released over seven years. One season per year, from beginning to end. The rhythm is deliberate, echoing the long arc it seeks to portray. By the time the final season arrives, the audience will not only have witnessed a theory of history but will have lived inside its enactment.
In this way, A Tale of a New Era blurs the line between research and life, between script and process. It is not a story finished and then told, but a drama written in real time — by a documentarian, an AI, and a global audience, together discovering what it means to live inside the plot of history.
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