This year's Cultural Diplomacy Forum, organized by the Ukrainian Institute in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, took place in London on December 4. The Forum is an annual conference that brings together leading experts from Ukraine and other countries to discuss insights, best practices, challenges, and the future of international cultural diplomacy and relations.

As part of the Forum's panel “Cultural Diplomacy in the Age of Advanced Technologies”, the Ukrainian AI company Reface showcased AI video featuring the British playwright William Shakespeare and Ukrainian poetess Lesia Ukrainka engaging in a virtual dialogue, where they play word associations.

Produced in-house by Reface's ML team, the video employed their proprietary deep learning model along with reenactment technology to authentically recreate the appearance of Lesia Ukrainka and William Shakespeare, as well as their conversation. The project effectively demonstrates the functional role of AI tools in the cultural domain.

Notably, Lesia Ukrainka, separated from Shakespeare by three centuries, translated his works into Ukrainian and admired him greatly. Today, their imaginary dialogue embodies a conversation between different eras and two different countries. The video aims to establish a parallel between today's amicable nations, Ukraine and Britain, emphasizing that despite distinct historical backgrounds, common values unite them.