{"id":621025,"date":"2026-09-11T03:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T03:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/621025\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T03:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T03:40:14","slug":"honor-debuts-robot-phone-at-venice-backed-by-a-300m-film-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/621025\/","title":{"rendered":"Honor Debuts Robot Phone at Venice, Backed by a $300M Film Hit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe success of Lan Hongchun\u2019s Dear You<\/a>\u00a0has brought him to Venice this year, one stop on a global festival tour where the Chinese filmmaker has been sharing the story behind his movie\u2019s unlikely rise to a $300 million hit back home. <\/p>\n

\n\tLan\u2019s small-scale but emotionally effective drama became a sensation on release earlier this year, tapping into themes of family and love that resonated in China<\/a> \u2014 and are now resonating with the Chinese diaspora as the film<\/a> finds a global release. Lan, who made\u00a0Dear You\u00a0for around $2 million, has been using his newfound platform to encourage audiences to take advantage of these favorable conditions and start creating themselves.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI feel like we\u2019re in an era where creators have so many more channels at their disposal,\u201d says Lan, speaking on the sidelines of Venice. \u201cWhether it\u2019s the equipment they use or the platforms to showcase their work, the options are incredibly diverse. That\u2019s why I believe it\u2019s a time full of opportunities for everyday creators.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of the latest examples of both the equipment \u2014 and the channels that are offering just that \u2014 have been front and center along the red carpet at Venice this year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the lion\u2019s share of attention has obviously fallen, as usual, on the festival\u2019s parade of stars \u2014 George Clooney and Maggie Gyllenhaal among them \u2014 Chinese smart device developers Honor has positioned two of its latest products behind the velvet ropes, hoping to turn the heads of a new generation of content creators as well as the talent.<\/p>\n

\n\tHonor is the \u201cofficial imaging strategic partner of the international<\/a> promotion program for Chinese-language films\u201d at Venice this year, with the program\u2019s organizers inviting Lan to the festival to help make the push. But Honor is also using the occasion to unveil their Magic9 Pro Max\u00a0at a film festival for the first time, showing it off alongside the company\u2019s new Robot Phone, which generated buzz both at Cannes back in May as well as in Shanghai in June.<\/p>\n

\n\tDeveloped through a creative collaboration between Honor, headquartered in the southern Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen, and the famed Munich-based camera and lens-makers Arri, both devices are designed to \u201cpush the boundaries of creation,\u201d Honor says in a statement, while making \u201ccinematic creation more accessible without compromising creative freedom.\u201d Indeed, Honor calls the Robot Phone \u201ca new species of smartphone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth devices are being marketed as portable cinema cameras, and they\u2019ve been hard to miss along the red carpet. Magic9 Pro Max\u2019s\u00a0moss-green back and Arri logo makes it look like a smaller version of one of the German brand\u2019s famed movie cameras, and the Robot Phone delivers exactly what it promises: a mechanical robotic arm with a gimbal system that stabilizes the movement of a 200MP camera.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe future is not simply about more pixels. It is about control. It is about empowering creators to capture beautiful images,\u201d was the take from David Bermbach, Chief Product Officer of ARRI, in announcing the Magic9 Pro Max\u00a0would feature at Venice. \u201cHonor brings expertise in mobile imaging, powerful processing, and robotics. Arri contributes more than a century of trusted leadership in image science and professional production workflows. We come from different industries, but we share one ambition: to expand what creators can achieve with the tools they carry every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLan Hongchun\u2019s \u2018Dear You\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDamai Entertainment<\/p>\n

\n\tFor tech heads, there\u2019s a lot here to dig into.\u00a0The Magic9 Pro Max is down for an official launch in late September and Honor says the device will \u201cfurther showcase Arri imaging capabilities and bring professional-grade cinematic imaging to a new generation of mobile users.\u201d\u00a0The Robot Phone comes with features that include that 4DoF gimbal, AI Object Tracking and the AI SpinShot.\u00a0The claim with that robotic arm is that it \u201ccan rotate up to 180 degrees and track movements automatically for smooth, cinematic shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor those less tech-savvy, the idea being pushed here is that these devices are light, portable and they produce cinema style content \u2014 \u201ca serious tool in professional filmmaking,\u201d according to \u00a0Bermbach.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Robot Phone\u2019s appearance this year continues the hype being driven around the use of robotics in China. The country\u2019s state-run media has been touting government investment in the field, with Morgan Stanley research predicting the industry will be worth $108 billion by 2028\u00a0\u2014 up from $47 billion in 2024. The technology has in the meantime been shifting away from the high-profile development of performative androids and into more everyday use in cameras and desktop computers.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a similar buzz around how the country has embraced AI \u2014 an industry currently worth around $175 billion\u00a0\u2014 and has likewise expanded its use into the by-now ubiquitous hand-held devices that help organize and entertain us day by day.<\/p>\n

\n\tHonor has been introducing its devices to the public by rolling them out across a number of festivals so far in 2026. At Cannes in May, the China Night gathering was shown the Robot Phone\u2019s features \u2014 including its robotic gimbal system, and the quality of content it can be used to produce. At the Shanghai Film Fest in June, the phone was used to make video portraits of the festival\u2019s jury members.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLooking back at a century of imaging, every major leap has come from the evolution of both light capture and intelligent processing,\u201d says James Li, CEO of Honor, when talking up the Arri collaboration in a press release back in August. \u201cHardware sets the foundation for image quality, while algorithms deliver the leap. But technology is only the foundation, what ultimately defines great imaging is aesthetics. A century of filmmaking has shown us the power of precise control over light and shadow, a deep understanding of color and emotion, and the ability to make every frame tell a story.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The success of Lan Hongchun\u2019s Dear You\u00a0has brought him to Venice this year, one stop on a global…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[576,10532,114,1043,61,1042,60,202,212819,80,26421,259483,263708],"class_list":["post-621025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-asia","tag-cannes-film-festival","tag-china","tag-film","tag-ie","tag-international","tag-ireland","tag-mobile","tag-shanghai-international-film-festival","tag-technology","tag-thr-news","tag-venice-film-festival-2026","tag-world-lens-venice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}