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Welcome to Set

SHORT EXPERIMENTAL DOCUMENTARY
2026 | NETHERLANDS, SOUTH KOREA | 14:45 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Congratulations! You’ve been selected as a validity rater for the datasets behind emotional AI technologies.

Reenacting laboratory data collection processes, Welcome to Set invites you behind the scenes of machine learning, where data becomes drama. This experimental documentary explores how emotion, suspicion, and politics intertwine within the algorithmic practices of security.

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cyan bae
cyan bae
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cyan bae

“Here, we learn that every one of our wrinkles, every twitch of our eyebrows, can now be the subject of commerce, and subsequently of control. Welcome to Set tells us this, and we shudder: our very faces feed the machines. And the machines read our faces.”

Jury Statement, Tënk Opening Scenes Award (Visions du Réel 2026)

awards

Tënk Opening Scenes Award, Visions du Réel 2026 [Opening Scenes Competition]

screenings & exhibitions

2026

55th International Film Festival Rotterdam (NL)

57th Visions du Réel (CH)

27th Jeonju International Film Festival (KR)

2nd Bref International Short Film Festival (IT)

Het Documentaire Paviljoen, Amsterdam (NL) – Special Programme Farocki’s Films as Research: Serious Games

The Grey Space in the Middle, The Hague (NL) – Group Exhibition Watching Machines: Life under Algorithmic Eyes

a film by

Cyan Bae

with

Inés Dominguez del Corral
Ildiko Flipse
Charlotte Willerscheidt
Almas Mahmood
Hyewon Jeong
Yaxin Xu
Sara Amzian

produced by

Francesco Ragazzi (Operational Images) & Cyan Bae (Pingping Productions)

project management

Elka Smith

co-directors of photography

Cristina Lavosi & Hattie Wade

edited by

Cyan Bae

co-editor

Anastasija Piroženko

sound design

Sergio González Cuervo

music

Sergio González Cuervo

colour grading

Mayıs Rukel

graphic design

Cyan Bae

hair & makeup

Suzan van Baal

special thanks

Evangelia Kranioti
Ruben van de Ven
Anonymous Participant J

Ildikó Zonga Plájás | Albert Elings | Daeun Lim | Julia Sokolnicka | Inaya Basu | Minji Ma | Jeamin Cha | Kevin B. Lee | Sunwoo Jung | Jae Pil Eun | Inup Park | Hyeonjeong Nes Joo | Minsang Damiaan Kim | Gang Buron-Yi | Sumi Im | Junwoo Lee | Marijn Hoijtink | Juha Vuori | Lauren B. Wilcox | Rocco Bellanova | Jelena Belic | Yoav Galai | Madeline Swainhart | Alice West | Yen Kim

Institute of Political Science, Leiden University

funding

This work was supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (SECURITY VISION, Grant Agreement No. 866535).