Stéphane Benini

Cars, dance and documentary

Before AI, Stéphane Benini directed dance films, music videos and documentaries about car culture: Lowrider Brasil, Stockholm Fury Road, Underground Connection and Happy Litefeet among them, according to the archived version of his earlier website^[32]. Cars have stayed his recurring world. On AI LIVE, Chris Branch calls him "an expert car guy"^[31].

His current site says he has been an AI artist since 2022, and describes him as a director who makes stories about "memory, identity and the invisible forces that shape us, using AI as a new kind of camera"^[1]. By 2024 he was part of the Monks artist group and the Secret Level collective, worked on visuals for the Black Eyed Peas with Monks, and made shorts with the Paris collective Prompt Club^[32].

He does not use AI to automate creativity. He uses it to expand what cinema can express.

stephanebenini.com^[1]

GORO, a directing duo

He co-founded GORO, a creative AI studio, with Bruno Detante^[2]. GORO makes advertising films and branded content in full AI and hybrid workflows, and its site is written in English, French and Japanese^[2]. The production company Bangger represents the pair as the directing duo GORO^[16]. GORO's own line on how they work is that the two "co-direct AI productions", and its manifesto is three words long: Don't Press Generate^[3].

On agency jobs the pair usually sit inside someone else's production as AI artists; on their own films they direct. Chris Branch compared them on air to another duo on AI LIVE, Albert Bozesan and Robert Sladeczek, and said he wanted them on a Creator Session together^[30].

AI artist on the big jobs

His site lists him as lead AI artist on the Mercedes-Benz CLA launch with will.i.am's FYI RAIDIO, produced by Secret Level, and as lead AI artist and creative director on a Google Pixel film with Monks^[1]. He was an AI artist on the NFL's 2025 season launch for Mathematic, and on Cadillac, Hyundai and Braun films with Monks^[1]. He also lists Miroir, a portrait of a cowboy on the American plains made by five directors for CES 2025 with Secret Level^[1].

On France Télévisions' film for the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Games, directed by Quentin Deronzier, he was an AI artist through Mathematic: a snowboarder drops into a Roman colosseum and grinds a halfpipe of marble statues that look carved from snow^[1][12]. France Télévisions published it on 30 October 2025^[10]. Shots put it in its Cannes Contenders 2026 for AI and digital craft and named both him and Bruno as lead AI artists^[11]. His site says it won Gold for AI Craft at the Epica Awards^[1].

On Lewis Capaldi's Something In The Heavens (Re-Imagined), made by Wonder Studios with YouTube and Google DeepMind and directed by Justin Hackney, the official credits list him as one of eight AI artists, alongside Bruno, Billy Boman and Mark Isle^[9]. The video says it was built with Flow, Google's AI filmmaking tool powered by Veo, and it has been watched more than 2.1 million times^[9].

A symbol into an icon

Maserati: 100 Years of the Trident is the film he and Bruno co-directed: his site credits him as "co director with bruno detante", produced by Mathematic, and Bruno's site names Maserati as the client^[1][7]. Maserati published it on its own YouTube channel on 27 April 2026^[8]. The film spread well beyond his own accounts: Maserati also posted it on Instagram, where the reel has been viewed more than 15.4 million times, and on TikTok, where it passed 8.1 million, which takes Maserati's own posts past 23 million views^{[43][44][45][46]}. In just over a minute it runs from the 1926 Targa Florio and the first Trident on a Maserati, through the 1967 Ghibli and the 2004 MC12, to the 2026 GranTurismo, with an AI voice sampled from the racing driver Maria Teresa de Filippis asking what it takes to turn a symbol into an icon^[8].

GORO and Bruno's site file the film under CGI rather than full AI^[4][7]. It won Best Advertising at the SHAIKE Film Festival 2026 in La Ciotat, and both of them also list a Best Commercial prize from the Neu Wave AI Film Festival^[6][7]. On AI LIVE, Chris called it work at the highest level.

That at the highest level is what you want, isn't it? You don't even question the AI.

Chris Branch, AI LIVE Ep 133^[30]

Films of his own

His authored films are quieter, built around lonely figures in vast places. Echoes of Us, made in Google's Flow Sessions artist programme, follows a father through a world that behaves like memory^[20]. Hashiriya, made with Dreamina, sends a Tokyo salaryman down the city on a longboard at 4am^[21]. The Last Migration, an old man at a lighthouse with the ghosts of a life once lived, was first made with Kling and screened at a Kling event in Paris and at AI on the Lot in Los Angeles; he released a director's cut in June 2026^[22][33].

I've always believed that technology is at its best when it becomes invisible.

Stéphane Benini, on The Last Migration^[22]

El Rey de la Montaña, a mockumentary about an Andean boy who teaches his village's prize alpaca high-altitude basketball, was his entry to the Dreamina AI contest at the Annecy Festival, made, he says, in a single day^[23]. The Last Tribe follows convicts who escape the Cayenne penal colony in 1931 into an unexplored part of the Amazon^[24]. His site also lists Kibomango, an AI documentary about a former child soldier who became a boxing champion in the DR Congo, and the sci-fi fable The Shape of Us, with festival prizes from online festivals that we have not checked^[1].

Love Letters, La Ciotat and the stage

At SHAIKE 2026 he made three of the festival's 100 one-minute Love Letters to Cinema with Dreamina: Speedhunter, one continuous shot of a driver racing through car-cinema history while his car changes era by era; Cinema; and CIOTAT, about the town where cinema began^[25][26]. Uncanny Harry and Toby Hyder made Love Letters there too^[31]. Chris Branch moderated a panel with Stéphane and Bruno on stage at the festival^[31][36].

He and Bruno give a keynote and workshop called Don't Press Generate, which they have taken to Upscale Conf in Málaga with Magnific, the Lisbon A.I Summit, E-AI in Montreal and the West Data Festival^[3][17]. He has also spoken twice at Lisbon Loras events, on bills with the Dor Brothers, Edmon Yang and Chris Branch^[1].

On AI LIVE

AI LIVE first played his REEL_AI showreel on Ep 98, on 6 November 2025, credited as Stefan Benini; Chris said it was exactly how to do a showreel, then played the France Télévisions film he recognised in it^[29]. Maserati: 100 Years of the Trident was the only ad on Ep 133^[30], and his Love Letter Cinema opened Ep 135's run of Love Letters to Cinema with a score of 94 out of 100^[31].