Swedish film "Watch the Skies" is set to make its debut in the U.S. Theatrical debut this May. Unbeknownst to the audience, who might naturally think the film was made in English, would be shocked to know that the film was originally made in Swedish.

The English version they would be enjoying in the theatres would be the dubbed version, with the use of innovative Ai-driven "visual dubbing" technology that would alter the actor's lip movement to match the English dubs and make it seem as if they were native English speakers.

A Revolutionary Approach to Localization

The film was originally titled UFO Sweden, but was given another name "Watch the skies" in the English reiteration of the original movie. The movie follows the story of a rebellious teenager Denise as she joins a UFO-watching club to uncover the mystery of her missing father.

While the film was originally shot in Swedish, its U.S. release will feature English dialogue re-recorded by the original cast. Using TrueSync, a cutting-edge machine learning tool developed by AI firm Flawless, the actors’ lip movements have been digitally altered to perfectly sync with the English-language audio.

In a behind the scenes interview with the writer-director of the movie, Victor Danell calls this technology a game changer for the international cinema. He explains that with this new AI technology, he can now leap past language barriers and exhibit his works to audiences all around the world.

Danell also emphasized that the use of TrueSync has been fully endorsed by SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, which has went on a strike in 2024 raising concerns about AI’s potential impact on creative professions.

While a lot of filmmakers and actors will be skeptical of AI and how it will take over the industry, but Danell reassured me that the movie is still fundamentally the works of actors and he still holds all the creative control over the movie.

“It’s still our movie, it’s still the actors’ performance, and that’s the key part.”

What can TrueSync do?

TrueSync employs deep learning to create a 3D volumetric model of an actor’s face, allowing precise adjustments to match dubbed dialogue without compromising performance authenticity.

First introduced in 2022 on the film Fall—where it was used to remove profanity for a PG-13 edit—the technology has since evolved into a powerful localization tool.

Flawless co-founder Scott Mann explained that TrueSync allows filmmakers to preserve original performances while reaching broader audiences. The company’s other AI product, DeepEditor, enables an actor's performance to be extracted from one scene and applied to another scene without the need for reshoots.

Flawless has partnered with distributor XYZ Films to bring more films localized with TrueSync to global audiences. Upcoming releases include Tom Tykwer’s The Light, horror feature Vincent Must Die, and South Korean action film Smugglers.