It looks like GTA: Vice City, and that’s entirely on purpose—a new film could easily run on the PS2 and was shot using nothing but an iPhone

A special film recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. *Le Vertige* was created entirely using the 3D animation software Blender and looks like a PS2 game.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been over 25 years since the PlayStation 2 was launched. Sony’s second-generation home console delivered graphics quality that was unprecedented by the standards of the time. From today’s perspective, the graphics of many games from that era may seem like pixelated mush, but at the Cannes International Film Festival, a film titled Le Vertigerecently premiered that adapts the graphic style of precisely that era.

And the best part:None of the people involved had ever made an animated film before. The creative mind behind the 67-minute film is French director Quentin Dupieux. Film fans may recognize the unconventional filmmaker from comedy projects such astire horror film Rubber

Dupieux chose the rough-hewn polygon aesthetic for his new film for a specific narrative reason: The plot revolves around characters who suddenly realize they are living in a massive computer simulation.

Dupieux specifically cites the open-world hitGTA: Vice Cityas a visual source of inspiration. The glitches and blocky textures are intended to convey the desired sense of an artificial world. You can get a first impression of the film in the trailer embedded above.

Dupieux took an unusual approach to the production: He simply recorded the voices of well-known French actors like Alain Chabat and Anaïs Demoustier and then sent the actors straight back home. The director handed over work on the rest of the film to a small team of five recent graduates from the renowned Paris art school Les Gobelins.

The newcomers, who had no prior experience with animated films, used the free3D software Blenderto build the digital sets. The virtual camera can be positioned within it just like on a real film set.

To create the movements, the team didn’t use expensive motion capture, but rather acheap iPhone app. As a result, the characters’ movements look awkward; hands clip through objects; some characters have too many fingers. But director Dupieux loves the result:It’s a bit clunky, there are bugs, and that’s exactly what I wanted to create. Something fragile and touching.

Le Vertige premiered as the closing film of the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes and will be released in French theaters on June 10, 2026. Director Dupieux is already planning the next logical step, by the way: he wants to shoot a sequel. In the style of real video game series, the second part will feature slightly improved graphics. You can find more entertainment news in the link box above.