NOUVELLE BUG
VOL. 4, Revine Lago, 19 – 29 Aug 2025
/ CALL FOR ENTRIES
> INTRO
The Varco and Lago Film Fest are proud to announce the fourth edition of the international avant-garde digital cinema residency. Ten days of workshops in residence in Revine Lago or online, from 19 to 29 August 2025, reserved for 40 filmmakers from all over the world, to explore the frontiers of the cinema of the future, with the tutoring of the most established directors of the genre.
The purpose of Nouvelle Bug is to show participating filmmakers the possibilities and paths that can be developed within graphics engines, artificial intelligence and videogames for the creation of experimental and authorial film poetics, acquainting them with the techniques and following them in the development and shooting of a short film project. The projects made during the lab will concur for awards offered by Gargantua Distribution, Gioia Film, Sayonara Film and Lago Film Fest.
> 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. 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, uncanny valleys, anti-capitalism and critiques of progressivism. “Happy New Year, Jim” (2022) was the first machinima in Cannes, at the 54. Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. In 2023 he presented in Locarno “Eschaton Ad”, a film about the apocalyptic advent of AI. Later that year he presented “A stranger quest” (2023), his first documentary feature about maps at Torino Film Festival. In 2024 his short film “The Eggregores’ Theory” opened the 39. Venice Film Critics’ Week as the first AI film in Venice and was nominated for EFA by ZINEBI.
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 spans film production, video installations, performances, and publications, employing these varied mediums as avenues for epistemological inquiry. Her work delves into new forms of subjectivity shaped by computational capitalism. Her film La Mécanique des fluides (2022) is the first of a trilogy of films proposing a reflection on the processes of individuation in its articulation with algorithms and digital flows of data and capital. It won the César for the Best Documentary Short in 2024. It is followed by the short “Here I am sitting in a Tin Can” which had its World premiere at Berlinale – Forum Expanded in February 2024.
> PROGRAM
DAY 1: Meet and greet and presentation of the participants and the program
DAY 2: Introduction to Nouvelle Bug, to Cyber-Cinema, cyber-realism, ethics and methodologies, film screenings and discussion
DAY 3: Machinima Films and Masterclass with Total Refusal, film screenings and discussion
DAY 4: Database Films and Masterclass with Gala Hernández López, film screenings and discussion
DAY 5: Artificial Intelligence and Masterclass with Andrea Gatopoulos, film screenings and discussion
DAY 6: Pitching of ideas and writing sessions
DAY 7: Pitching of ideas and writing sessions
DAY 8: Shooting and editing of the films
DAY 9: Shooting and editing of the films
DAY 10: Shooting and editing of the films
DAY 11: Screening of the rough cuts and final party
Program can be subjected to changes.
> ADMISSION CRITERIA AND TERMS OF PARTICIPATION
Directors of all ages can apply for the workshop free of charge with no nationality or genre restrictions. Forty filmmakers will be selected from the application.
The workshop will be held simultaneously live and online. When applying, it will be necessary to indicate whether you want to conduct the workshop live ( 15 places available) or online (25 places available).
Applications are valid only by filling out the form at the following LINK by Jun 15th, 2025.
The Workshop will be held in Revine Lago, hosted by Lago Film Fest. Participation is subject to payment of the registration fee (eur 840 for the live workshop, eur 440 for the online workshop), which can be made by Paypal payment or bank transfer to the coordinates indicated together with the selection notice. All fees for the money transfer are at the expense of the participant.
The registration fee does not include any expenses other than the Workshop itself, it is therefore understood that in the case of in-presence selection the costs of lodging, transportation and food are the responsibility of the participant, who therefore agrees to be present in Revine Lago during the workshop dates.
> CALENDAR
February 25th 2025 Opening of the call for entries
June 15th 2025 Closing of the call for entries
June 28th 2025 Announcement of the 40 selected directors
August 19th 2025 Start of the workshop
October 1st 2025 Selection of the winning projects
> 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.