Empathy Protocol
AI short film · Kōyō Studio
About the project
A robot discovers a small bird in its final moments of life, and in that silence something unexpected surfaces: grief. Without dialogue, through gesture, weight and stillness alone, the film asks whether a non-human character can communicate a recognisably human emotion.
How it was made
Directed as a silent piece, where the entire emotional weight rests on performance and stillness. Shots were built and iterated for subtle, continuous performance in a mechanical character rather than for spectacle.