DUCK is a daring deepfake short that follows Sean Connery’s unravelling after he witnesses Marilyn Monroe’s return from the dead. Set in the instantly recognisable world of a British Spy Thriller, the film's main protagonist - a deepfake Sean Connery - plays out the role he knows all too well: collecting clues, wrongfooting assailants, and eliminating the femme fatale - only to find that all is not what it seems. A conspiracy is at play, and as the behaviours of those around him become increasingly paradoxical, his grip on reality loosens. Marilyn Monroe is the glamorous siren and a thorn in Connery’s side. Unlike him, Monroe understands the power that comes with being just an image - an appropriation of femininity and sexuality largely defined by men - and uses her endlessly mutable image to her own manipulative gain. Like many of Maclean’s films, DUCK explores the fragility and malleability of identity, the slipperiness of reality, and the ramifications of gender-based power dynamics. Deepfake, a technology considered to be inherently duplicitous, is the perfect mechanism by which to pose questions not just about AI, but about how veracity is perceived in images and film more generally. Maclean’s DUCK is a multifaceted, self-aware film that aims to satirise some of the more histrionic narratives pushed by the media regarding deepfakes and their contribution to the ‘decline of truth’.

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