An AI Werner Herzog Fronts 'About a Hero.' Herzog Gave Permission.

Utopia's Circle Collective opens the docu-mystery in North American theaters this fall, with the film's AI, KASPAR, booked for Q&As.

A synthetic Werner Herzog carries the narration in the first trailer for “About a Hero,” the debut feature from Polish artist Piotr Winiewicz. The film's story was generated by KASPAR, an AI trained on the real Herzog's body of work with his permission. Utopia's Circle Collective, which holds North American rights, will put the film in theaters this fall, IndieWire reported in publishing the trailer as an exclusive on September 15, 2026.

The odd part isn't the voice. It's the seat afterward. Pressman Film and Utopia are running North American screenings where the Q&A guest is KASPAR itself, the software. It takes the chair a filmmaker usually occupies, and an audience that just paid for a ticket asks it questions.

The plot, adapted by Winiewicz and screenwriter Anna Juul from KASPAR's generated material, starts with a death. A factory worker named Dorem Clery dies under circumstances nobody can explain, and the synthetic Herzog goes to a quiet European town to work out why. In the trailer, that voice calls a person's death a great mystery, a great enigma.

Per IndieWire's description of the cut, the images run dreamlike rather than expository: a man taking his clothes off, a woman screaming inside a parked car, a crime scene soaked in blood.

Around the staged story, the film sets real interviews with artists, philosophers and scientists, pulled into what the filmmakers call a “provocative conversation about authorship, originality, consent and the limits of machine-made meaning.” That's the pitch, and it's also the thing the movie can't dodge, since its lead performance is a copy of a living director.

Herzog himself, asked at the Venice Film Festival about his participation, gave IndieWire a position on AI that isn't the guild position: “I welcome AI to replace all the idiots who are into nothing but repeating, repeating, repeating until it's ad nauseam. When it's ad nauseam, please, please, please let AI step in and do the job.”

The human cast includes Vicky Krieps (“Phantom Thread”), Stephen Fry (“Gosford Park”) and Imme Beccard (“Am Ende der Worte”). Sam Pressman and Max Loeb produced for Pressman Film, with Tambo Film, Cineteam Hannover, Yo Productions, Engima and Utopia.

It isn't a new film everywhere. “About a Hero” opened the 2024 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and played CPH:DOX, Karlovy Vary, Thessaloniki, Göteborg, Sitges and the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival. Arte released it across Europe. North America is getting it two years later, with a machine on the promo tour.

The first of those screenings happened September 15 at the Paradise Theatre in Toronto, during the Toronto International Film Festival. New York and Los Angeles dates were announced as planned; no Los Angeles date has been set.

New York's premiere is September 30 at Crown Hill Theatre in Brooklyn, with Winiewicz and KASPAR on stage afterward. Tickets are on sale.

Source: indiewire.com, retrieved September 16, 2026.