MILAN — In 1998, Diesel scooped up the award for Advertiser of the Year at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

At the time, only one person was invited on stage to receive the award, but the brand’s founder Renzo Rosso’s rebellious spirit spiced up the moment with a dose of irony — he had four of his closest collaborators wear masks resembling him.

This is one of the key moments in “Be Brave,” the documentary dedicated to the OTB Group founder that premiered out-of-competition at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday.

Rosso pulled the same trick this time, as five Rosso “doppelgangers” walked the red carpet ahead of the screening, along with the likes of Glenn Martens, Natasha Poly, Michèle Lamy and Carlo Capasa, among others.

The move set the tone for what is an unconventional take on documentaries. As reported, the 85-minute film has been billed as the first movie to be fully created with AI, with its realization taking more than 18 months. It was directed by Francesco Carrozzini, the son of late Vogue Italia editor in chief Franca Sozzani, whose works include the intimate documentary “Franca: Chaos and Creation” on his mother and the environmental virtual reality film “X-ray Fashion.”

To tell Rosso’s story, Carrozzini met and interviewed his family, friends, collaborators and celebrities — or did he?

During a press conference ahead of the premiere, Rosso said that everything was informed by AI, including the scenes where he appears. “Not a single frame of me was shot,” he quipped.

To be sure, Carrozzini himself stars in the movie, and his voice guides viewers through a journey that blurs the lines of what is perceived as real archival footage and what is markedly created via AI.

“It’s interesting how you can’t discern the moments, because that’s also the fun of this film: the experimentation,” said Carrozzini. “It embodies the soul of Renzo [Rosso], who’s a disruptor.”

The director explained the technology was applied “more or less on everything,” from being used to create moments that never existed from scratch to being integrated into the many real interviews in the movie, ranging from designers such as John Galliano and Martens to Rosso’s longtime collaborators Maurizio Marchiori and Johan Lindberg; cameos by Kim Kardashian and Bono, and family members spanning from Rosso’s wife Arianna and brother Giuseppe to sons Stefano and Andrea.

Carrozzini said recreating specific human behaviors through AI was the most challenging technical part of this exercise.

The unconventional approach to the documentary genre is what convinced Rosso to greenlight the project.

Rosso revealed that over the past five years many directors approached him with the offer of doing a documentary of his life but he’s always declined so far. “I was not interested in doing a movie on my life,” he said. “But then [producer Lorenzo Mieli] explained to me all the steps and the technology behind what he had in mind and I said: that’s really cool. I’m [crazy] for technology,” he added, reminding how he was the first to invest in companies such as Yoox or to launch a website for a fashion brand.

For Rosso, technology doesn’t substitute for the creativity of a designer. “The human being is fundamental. If you don’t put [in a machinery] the values of a company, you can’t do anything. And when the machinery gives you something, you have to be truly creative because you have to interact with it,” he said, adding that AI “is a great help because it incites you to think and come up with things you couldn’t make otherwise.”

Rosso enthused about the final result for “Be Brave.” He recalled how “there weren’t images of me as a child” but AI enabled the recreation of them, like many other moments punctuating the film.

The movie’s spark is 1996, when Diesel officially landed in the United States, the birthplace of denim, opening a store on Lexington Avenue opposite a Levi’s unit.

It’s a moment foreshadowing the brand’s success, before Carrozzini takes the narration back to Brugine, Rosso’s little hometown in Italy’s Veneto region and to his childhood in the countryside. Empowered by his mother’s Singer sewing machine, Rosso started to make jeans at 15, selling flared pants to friends.  

The narration includes the creation of the OTB Group and the various acquisitions Rosso made throughout the years, starting with Maison Margiela acquired in 2002, to the current portfolio that also includes Marni, Jil Sander, Viktor&Rolf, a stake in Amiri, as well as Staff International and Brave Kid.

At the end, a segment imagines Rosso in 2255, with humanity living on a distant world ruled by AI. “Is there anyone left who will rebel?” appears on the screen, before Rosso exhorts a young audience “not to be afraid of the future” and of new technologies.