By Queenie Wong,Wendy Lee
Publication Date: 2025-12-04 18:38:00
A man mourns the loss of his dead celebrity mom, who unexpectedly appears before him as a hologram in his childhood home, singing and strumming a guitar.
The touching scene is from a new short film called “Sweetwater” that has an unlikely backer: Google.
Amid all the hand-wringing over artificial intelligence and the potential threat it poses to Hollywood and the creative community, the tech giant is looking to reframe the narrative with a 21-minute film that examines whether technology can help humans process grief in this new era of the digital age.
Google set the stage for that discussion with a glitzy event at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on Monday night. Actors, filmmakers, producers and entertainment workers packed a Los Angeles theater to watch “Sweetwater,” starring Michael Keaton and Kyra Sedgwick.
Google commissioned “Sweetwater” with Santa Monica-based talent management firm Range Media Partners to explore the complex relationship between AI and…