NOUVELLE BUG

VOL. 4.2, ROME, 17 – 27 nov 2025

/ CALL FOR ENTRIES

> INTRO

Il Varco is pleased to announce the fourth special edition of its cutting-edge digital cinema residency. Ten days of intensive workshops in Rome, from November 17 to 27, 2025, reserved for six Italian filmmakers under the age of 35, to explore the frontiers of the cinema of the future with the guidance of the most accomplished directors in the genre.
Thanks to the support of SIAE as part of its call for proposals for the professionalization of artists, this special edition offers a unique opportunity: accommodation, meals, and a gross compensation of €500 included for all selected participants.

The aim of Nouvelle Bug is to show participating filmmakers the possibilities and paths that can be developed within graphics engines, artificial intelligence, and video games for the creation of experimental and auteur cinematographic poetics, familiarizing them with the techniques and following them in the development and shooting of a short film project.

> CINEMA IN THE METAVERSE

Today, human beings look more at the phone screen than at the sky: the desktop has become an involuntary cosmic horizon, a container that has engulfed in spite of many of the emotional, cognitive, and growth processes that lead us to be who we are.

The metaverse is nothing more than a space inhabited by our avatars -our accounts, 3-D characters, our digital simulacra- and, contrary to how it is advertised, it has existed for more than two decades. 

Although it seems to be a world separate from us, beyond an otherness of its own, it can now be incorporated into cinema to tell closely about so many human feelings that in that world of simulacra seem to glow with a new aura. 

The purpose of this workshop is to make a synthesis of all the aesthetic and expressive possibilities of this idea and to put them into practice immediately. 

We will delve also into the new aesthetics and solutions brought to us by the widespread use of artificial intelligence, trying to reason like the machine does, to look at human beings through the eyes of algorithms, exposing how humans have started to play God through software and what it means for their future.

>TUTORS

MAIN TUTOR

ANDREA GATOPOULOS 

Andrea Gatopoulos is an Italian and Greek director, producer, and distributor. A member of EFA, Berlinale Talents, Locarno Spring Academy, and TFL, he studied in workshops with W. Herzog, Radu Jude, and A. Weerasethakul. His films deal with virtual realities, disturbing valleys, anti-capitalism, and critiques of progressivism. “Happy New Year, Jim” (2022) was the first machinima film at Cannes, at the 54th Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. In 2023, he presented “Eschaton Ad”, a film about the apocalyptic advent of AI, at Locarno. Later that year, he presented *“A stranger quest”* (2023), his first feature-length documentary about maps, at the Torino Film Festival. In 2024, his short film “The Eggregores’ Theory” opened the 39th Critics’ Week in Venice as the first AI film in Venice and was nominated for the EFA by ZINEBI and the 70th David di Donatello Awards, winning a special Nastro D’Argento for experimentation.

VISITING TUTORS

ISMAËL JOFFROY CHANDOUTIS

Ismaël is a filmmaker and artist who trained at Le Fresnoy and whose student films were screened in many festivals. A graduate of INSAS, LUCA School of Arts, and Le Fresnoy, He exhibits his work in major institutions, like Centre Pompidou in Paris, Pearl Art Museum in Shanghai and in the most prestigious festivals, from Venice Biennale to Cannes, Annecy, IDFA. Since 2022, Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis has been an associate artist at Centquatre-Paris. With Maalbeek, selected for the 59th edition of La Semaine de la Critique, he went further in his investigation of how identity, technology and the virtual world interact, by piecing together the images and sounds of the fragmented, traumatic memory of a victim of the 2015 Brussels terrorist attacks. He won the César 2022 for best Short Documentary.

TOTAL REFUSAL CREW

Total Refusal is a pseudo-marxist media guerilla focused on the artistic intervention and appropriation of mainstream video games. We upcycle video games in order to reveal the political apparatus beyond the glossy and hyperreal textures of this media. Their films have been selected in many festivals including Berlinale and Locarno and their artistic research has been featured worldwide in museums and art fairs. With “Hardly Working”, which premiered in Locarno, they won the European Film Award for Best Short  Film.

GALA HERNANDEZ LOPEZ

Gala Hernández López is an artist, filmmaker, and researcher. Her interdisciplinary practice ranges from film production to video installations, performances, and publications, using these media as avenues for epistemological inquiry. Her work explores new forms of subjectivity shaped by computational capitalism. Her film La Mécanique des fluides (2022) is the first in a trilogy of films that reflects on processes of individuation in relation to algorithms and digital flows of data and capital. It won the César Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2024. “Here I am sitting in a Tin Can” had its world premiere at the Berlinale – Forum Expanded in February 2024, and “+10k” was presented at the Quinzaine des Cineastes in Cannes in 2025.

> PROGRAM

DAY 1 (11/17/2025): Meeting and presentation of participants and program

DAY 2 (11/18/2025): Introduction to Nouvelle Bug, Cyber-Cinema, cyber-realism, ethics, and methodologies, film screenings, and discussion

DAY 3 (19/11/2025): Machinima Films and Masterclass with Total Refusal, film screenings and discussion

DAY 4 (20/11/2025): Artificial Intelligence and Masterclass with Andrea Gatopoulos, film screenings and discussion

DAY 5 (11/21/2025): Pitching ideas and writing sessions

DAY 6 (11/22/2025): Pitching ideas and writing sessions

DAY 7 (11/23/2025): Database Films and Masterclass with Gala Hernández López, film screenings and discussion

DAY 8 (11/24/2025): Filming and editing of films

DAY 9 (11/25/2025): Filming and editing of films

DAY 10 (11/26/2025): Filming and editing of films

DAY 11 (11/27/2025): Screening of the first versions of the films and closing party

Program can be subjected to changes.

> ADMISSION CRITERIA AND TERMS OF PARTICIPATION

Only Italian directors under the age of 35 are eligible to apply. Six directors will be selected from the applicants.

> CALENDAR

 October 3, 2025: Call for entries opens

October 18, 2025: Call for entries closes

October 23, 2025: Announcement of the 6 selected directors

November 17, 2025: Workshop begins

January 2026: Selection of winning projects and awards ceremony

>AWARDS 

The works created during the workshop will be evaluated for the following awards:

IL VARCO PRODUCTION AWARD

One work will become an official production of Il Varco srl, which will cover the costs of audio post-production, the creation of opening and closing credits, the production of the poster, and communication materials.

GARGANTUA FILM DISTRIBUTION AWARD

One work will be distributed by Gargantua Film with an 18-month international festival strategy.

GIOIA FILM AWARD

One work will be distributed by Gioia Film with an international festival strategy.

Works that do not win distribution awards will still receive a personalized distribution strategy that they can implement independently.

>CATALOG AND AWARDS CEREMONY

An official catalog of the edition will be published by Il Varco srl containing:

Exclusive interviews with selected participants

Conversations with tutors and teachers

In-depth materials on the works produced

Photographic documentation of the workshop

The catalog will be presented during the invitation-only awards ceremony to be held in January 2026, during which all the works produced will be screened and the distribution prizes awarded.

> COPYRIGHT AND IMAGE RIGHTS

 The copyright of the images created will remain the property of the director. By registering, the director allows Il Varco to use the images in any publication (digital and / or paper) relating to the Nouvelle Bug Workshop. All participants are aware that any image created during the workshop can be used by Il Varco for marketing and promotional purposes directly linked to the Workshop. Il Varco guarantees that the author will always be quoted and credited in every publication.

Il Varco declines all responsibility in the event of copyright infringement and / or unauthorized references to subjects filmed, including people, objects and organizations filmed within the developed shots.

> PRIVACY DISCLAIMER

Each candidate expressly authorizes Il Varco srls as well as its legal representative to process the personal data transmitted pursuant to Law 675/96 (“Privacy Law”) and subsequent amendments – Legislative Decree 196/2003 (Privacy Code), also for the purposes of inclusion in databases managed by the aforementioned person. Each participant in the competition grants Il Varco and its legal representative free of charge the rights to reproduce the works and texts issued for the prize, in order to create the catalog, any publication on the prize website and other forms of communication, promotion and activities of the organization. The organizers of the competition will have the right of final decision on everything that is not specified in this announcement. The organization reserves the right to make changes to the information contained in the announcement if necessary.