El Empleo's AI remake pulled after its director objected

An Instagram account used AI to remake El Empleo, the award-winning 2008 Argentine animated short, and drew more than five million views in under 24 hours, Cartoon Brew reported.

The account, Nightframe, had about 16,000 followers when the 30-second remake went viral over the weekend. It has since removed the video, after Patricio Plaza, who made the film with Santiago Bou Grasso, objected to his work being used to promote a paid AI filmmaking service.

The commercial link showed up in the caption, which told viewers to "Send AI to find out how I made this film." Following that instruction triggered an automated message pointing to AI Film School, a paid community on the Skool platform that advertises AI filmmaking instruction at $49 a month.

Plaza told Cartoon Brew the remake was doing more than borrowing. "So these people were not only infringing the film's copyright, but also using it to make their AI business go viral and generate revenue," he said. "I can't even begin to list all the things that are wrong with this."

The person behind Nightframe denied profiting. "I'm a student running my Instagram page as a hobby, experimenting with AI filmmaking," they said. "I created a 30-second AI interpretation of the original six-minute animation purely for fun, with no intention of exploiting the creator's work." The operator said the original film had been credited, denied receiving any money from the video or the account, and said they occasionally share AI Film School's content without compensation. Cartoon Brew notes the account did not explain why the post carried a prompt leading to the paid service.

What Is El Empleo?

El Empleo (The Employment) is a 2008 Argentine short, six minutes and 19 seconds long, drawn on paper and finished in 2D. It follows a man on his commute into a world where people serve as furniture, lamps and doormats, their labor spent for someone else's benefit. The Annecy festival archive lists it with the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2009 festival. IMDb records a 2009 nomination for the festival's top award, the Cristal, and a CineLatinoamericano interview puts its tally at more than 100 international awards and records it as the first Argentine short to win at Annecy.

The irony is the choice of source. El Empleo is a film about people turned into tools, and it was repurposed to pitch software that automates creative labor, turning two years of hand-drawn frames into an advertisement.

Animators have been fighting this kind of reuse for years. The Washington Post reported in 2023 how animators including Cartoon Saloon's Tomm Moore were pushing back on tools trained to copy their work.

The takedown is the part that matters for creators. Neither director was consulted before the remake was made or released, and the video came down only after Plaza asked. The view and follower figures are Cartoon Brew's reporting and have not been independently checked, and no court has ruled on whether a 30-second AI interpretation of an existing film is infringement. The removal was the account's own move.

The original El Empleo is free to watch on Vimeo, and AI Film School lists its membership at $49 a month.