Nouvelle bug films
Some of the films from our workshop and their relative festival history. Request a screener at info@nouvellebug.com
A DREAM MY SISTER HAD
Fabio Thieme
DE, 7′, Fiction
Five years ago, my sister had a dream where I turned into a monkey. She avoids movies because they give her nightmares, so this time, I brought her dream to the screen using AI and a video game. By embracing the glitches and letting the software unravel in a dream-like logic, the film explores what happens when someone you love transforms into someone unfamiliar. Ooh Ooh Ah Ah!
12. Animaze Montreal International Animation Film Festival
2. Burano Artificial Intelligence Film Festival
Manual of Self-Destruction
Elisa Baccolo
IT, CH, 20′, Experimental, Documentary
After noticing that a generative AI model modifies her self-portraits imposing unattainable and unsolicited beauty standards, E. suspects these models may be nothing more than the sublimation of something already affecting society.
29. Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur
no_mercy_in_Mexico
Oscar Asan
MX, 22′, Fiction, Experimental, Animation
In a virtual realm, two young souls embark on a quest to find their vanished best friend, only to uncover that Mexican tragedy has materialized into a game of darkness and distrust. As they journey forward, the disappearance of one becomes the pursuit of many.
29. Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur
DEAR MA’
Olivier Grancher-Martel
CA, 10′, Narrative
A mother gives her son a video call. What do we need to know and what do we choose to believe?
15. Almería Western Film Festival
25. Message to Man International Festival – Special Jury Prize
SHOULD VIRTUAL PETZ DIE?
Carlo Galbiati
IT, 12′, Documentary, Experimental, Machinima
After a computer crash, a girl struggles with the loss of her long-time virtual pet, Bubba.
48. Drama International Short Film Festival
12. Linoleum Animation Festival
25. PÖFF Shorts
42. Kassel Documentary Film Festival
4. Brixia Film Fest
19. KFFK / Kurzfilmfestival Köln
13. Primanima World Festival of First Animations
9. NEOSFEST Encuentro Internacional de Experimentació
SOMEONE TO STEAL HORSES WITH
Dylan Pailes-Friedman
US/IT, 9′, Experimental
A rainy morning is interrupted by the radio. A horse’s voice transports the daily commute in Los Santos, San Andreas to a remote broadcasting station in an unspecified location. He’s written a novel reflecting on the past. An ancestral memory. Movement and time become uncertain—we traverse abandoned histories through valleys and train tracks. Among the spoor is a longing for connection, a lost sense of value, a desire to be stolen.
21. Lago Film Fest
6. i-Fest International Film Festival
6. Desenzano Film Festival
1. Kinejo Festival
35. Message to Man International Film Festival
9. Beijing International Short Film Festival
19. TiSFF Thessaloniki International Short Film Festival
3. NOAM Faenza Film Festival
HOMUNCULUS
Bonheur Suprême
FR/IT, 17′, Documentary
Homunculus displays the wandering of a man in quest for other men.
He will realize along his travels that people see him as an «Arab», some ambiguous, virile, and powerful entity both celebrated by white gay males and hated by French police forces.
56. Visions du Réel – Academy Awards Qualifying
22. Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival
Guided Meditation
Desirée Alagna
IT, 6′, Experimental
Within the video game The Sims 4, a Sim hovers lightly over its empty body, which resembles an exoskeleton with no organs to worry about, guided by an audio track of a guided meditation. Meanwhile, random videos, like those that might be found in the infinite archive of a phone’s memory, interfere with the search for that moment of tranquility.
7. Porn Film Festival Vienna
8. Hacker Porn Film Festival
6. Satyrs and Maenads – Athens Porn Film Festival
THE UNKNOWN PAINTING
Niklas Poweleit
DE/IT, 12′, Documentary-Experimental
In the stairwell of a pizzeria hangs an unknown painting. As one of hundreds of props in a First-Person Shooter video game, it receives no attention from the players. But its story reveals an unrecognized privilege.
64. Cartagena de Indias International Film Festival – FICCI (Academy Awards qualifying)
65. Zlín FIlm Festival – International Film Festival for Children and Youth
HOLD ON FOR DEAR LIFE
Simone Fiorentino
ITA, 9′, Machinima
A young man wanders around his bomb-wounded city with his dog and his noseless friend Jean-Michel, while trying to keep his everyday life intact.
46. Drama International Short Film Festival (Academy Awards®, European Film Awards qualifying)
39. Interfilm Berlin (Academy Awards® qualifying)
33. Rio de Janeiro International Festival – Curta Cinema (Academy Awards® qualifying)
25. Izmir International Short Film Festival (Academy Awards® qualifying)
12. IndieCork (BAFTA qualifying)
39. Videoformes International Festival – Winner Student Award
12. FIDBA – Buenos Aires International Documentary Film Festival
6. Milan Machinima Festival
10. Bali International Short Film Festival – Minikino
13. Catania Film Fest
10. Linoleum Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival
30. Caminhos Film Festival
8. The Next Generation Short Film Festival
15. Paris International Animation Film Festival
36. Girona Film Festival
21. Tallgrass Film Festival
33. International Film Festival Message to Man
2. Anafi International Film Festival
29. Filmfest Schleswig-Holstein
9. Digerati Experimental Media Festival
15. Paris International Animation Film Festival
10. IBIZACINEFEST – 2025
30. International Short Film Week Regensburg – 2025
AU REVOIR, PUGS
Brett Allen Smith
USA, 9′, Documentary
Recasting his newborn son and dog as himself and his childhood pets, a filmmaker confronts his own false memories through a collage of film, digital and video game footage.
66. DOK Leipzig
19. ZagrebDox International Documentary Film Festival
52. ALCINE Festival de Cine de Alcalá de Henares
18. Millennium Docs Against Gravity
26. Docaviv
3. Interaction Short Doc Festival
33. NorthwestFest International Documentary Festival
A missed call
Francesco Manzato
ITA, 10′, Documentary
I found some Super8s shot by my grandfather, who died before I was born. Deserts, mountain ranges, cities; memories of his travels and testimonies of a world that no longer exists. I imagined an afterlife for him, an otherworldly loop where he can continue to explore and I can get to know him.
42. Bellaria Film Festival – Principi Italiani
28. Kurzfilmtage Winterthur
20. Lago Film Fest
23. Concorto Film Fest
8. DocuBaku Film Festival
8. Milan Machinima Festival
1. Adriatikino
1. Archivio Aperto Young
TIME SENSITIVE CHARACTERS
Coralie Gourdon
French Polinesia, 16′, Documentary
Online, sleep has become an art form. While a game creator attempts to teach the concept of time to his AI, online gamers fall asleep during seemingly never-ending quests, some livestream their own sleep, and AMSR artists create soundscapes for peaceful slumber. A fascinating observation of the world of cyber-sleep.
55. Visions du Réel International Film Festival Nyon
2. Syncro Film Fest
2. Anafi International Film Festival
5. i-Fest International Film Festival
34. Message to Man International Film Festival
66. ZINEBI Bilbao International Festival of Documentary and Short Films
14. Márgenes Madrid International Film Festival
PLAYGROUND
Celia Caroubi
France, 12′, Documentary
Célia plays an online video game with her sister Anna, who is 12 years old. Things get out of hand when we meet “Alex”, another player, who wants to play Truth or Dare. The dares he gives them become insistent and ambiguous. Célia is getting concerned about how to protect her sister from the dangers that can exist in virtual worlds.
31. Hot Docs Festival
20. Lago Film Fest
47. Kortfilmfestivalen / The Norwegian Short Film Festival
12. Cinefem
30. Caminhos Film Festival
17. This Human World International Human Rights Festival
25. Tricky Women, Tricky Realities
WHERE ARE YOU SAMUEL?
Samuele Leogrande
Italy, 13′, Documentary
Samuel’s soul finds itself in a digital world he does not know. A strange voice from the sky seems to show him the way home.
66. ZINEBI Film Festival
8. NextGeneration Film Festival
J’adore Venise: On disappearing Bodies
Stefano De Alessandri
Italy, 10′, Documentary
Delving into the relationship between Venice as a place and the people who move through it, J’adore Venise focuses on the phenomenon of disappearing bodies that result from both anthropogenic environmental degradation and the pervasive influence of surveillance capitalism.
31. Hot Docs Festival
20. Lago Film Fest
25. re:publica; Offstage Programme, Hamburg
4. INDOCILI – Nuovo cinema giovane
Passi
Silvia Cuconati
Italy, 7′, Documentary
“Passi” (Steps) is a reflection on memories, processed through the virtual reality of a video game and the tangible external reality of old personal vhs. The union of these two elements is elaborated through the structure of a walking simulator, in which walking and exploring represent the very essence of the game. The concept of memory also plays (in games in general) particular roles, as they in fact appropriate memories that do not belong to them. The film attempts to retrace these aspects.
45. Filmmaker Festival – Milan
52. Concordia Film Festival
3. Unarchive Found Footage Fest
Night song of a wondering cowboy
Andrea De Fusco
Italy, 12′, Documentary
Night Song of a Wandering Cowboy is a journey beyond the boundaries of the map of ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’, a ‘open-world’ video game with a vast surface area. Exploiting a glitch, I pushed my avatar into territories not meant to be played yet created by the programmers. Here one encounters atmospheres, areas and objects charged with mystery and surreality.
30. Visioni Italiane – Cineteca di Bologna
19. SoleLuna Doc
19. Lago Film Fest
6. Prisma Film Awards – Best sound award
20. Corto Dorico
9. Diametrale Film Festival
4. INDOCILI – Rassegna cinema giovane
LIMBO
Elena Rebeca Carini
Italy, 15′, Documentary
2. Cagliari Essay Film Festival
Streaming on ZALAB View
AEOLUS
Niccolò Donatini
Italy, 10′, Documentary
21. Sedicicorto Film Festival
21. Accordi @ disaccordi International Short Film Festival
5. Cineforme: Rifrazioni
DEAR MA
Olivier Granchier
Canada, 10′, Documentary
A mother gives her son a video call. What do we need to know and what do we choose to believe?
34. Message To Man Film Festival
23. Almeria Western Film Festival
DISPLACED
Nagham El-Khoury
UK, 9′, Documentary
An interview with the director’s mother who has been displaced in war from Lebanon. A small insight to her personal experience and how she felt through it and after it.
12. Cyborg Film Festival
11. Riga International Film Festival
5. Immagina Festival
10. DokuBazaar Slovenia
ANOTHER PARADISE
Sebastian Petri
ITA, 7′, Documentary
In video games that offer the choice of being male or female, many players often choose to play characters of the opposite sex. But what is the origin of this phenomena? Through Internet collected content and footage made within video games, Another Paradise seeks to question our concept of the masculine and feminine.
2. Festa del Cinema Pirata
8. Milan Machinima Festival