Google DeepMind helped reconstruct a couple's lost memory in the documentary Love, Rendered

The short documentary Love, Rendered was created through a collaboration between Google DeepMind and the production company Primordial Soup, the creative platform of Darren Aronofsky. The film follows the couple Burt and Ethelle Shatz, who have been together for more than 70 years, and captures their memory of the day they met at a student housing cooperative in Cleveland — this moment was never photographed or filmed and existed only in their memory. The film was made in the context of Burt's cognitive decline and explores the theme of memory loss and the power of storytelling. It was directed by Oscar nominee Liz Garbus and produced by Dan Cogan and Darren Aronofsky.

According to Google, reconstructing the unrecorded memory required a two-part technical approach. First, the team used generative models to restore black-and-white photographs of Burt and Ethelle from their youth so that subsequent reconstructions would remain faithful to their actual appearance. Engineers then used models to capture pose and expression, mapping the couple's current subtle expressions and mannerisms onto their younger likenesses — a tilt of the head, a hesitation in speech, wrinkles around the eyes. According to the article, Ethelle actively participated in the creative process as a co-author, correcting details such as the shape of a staircase or the heel of a shoe.

Google also points out in the article that users can try a similar feature for restoring and colorizing old photographs directly in the Gemini app by uploading an image and entering the appropriate request.