At the Mastercard Priceless Lounge inside the Hotel Excelsior, during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, the second edition of the Reply AI Film Festival announced its winners. Created by global consultancy Reply, the festival has quickly become one of the most visible showcases for AI-driven short filmmaking.
More than 2,500 submissions arrived from 67 countries, a sharp increase from the 1,400 in the festival’s debut year. The theme for 2025 was “Generation of Emotions,” guiding filmmakers to explore how AI tools can generate authentic, emotionally resonant experiences. From those thousands of entries, an international jury selected ten finalists whose work was screened and judged in Venice.
The jury president, director Gabriele Muccino, was joined by filmmakers and technologists including Rob Minkoff, Caleb and Shelby Ward, Denise Negri, Dave Clark, Charlie Fink, Filippo Rizzante, Caroline Ingeborn, Paolo Moroni, and Guillem Martinez Roura. Together they awarded three main prizes and two special recognitions, citing originality, production quality, and the thoughtful use of AI across the creative process, from scriptwriting to post-production.
The Grand Prize of €8,000 went to Love at First Sight by Jacopo Reale. “Winning with Love at First Sight is not only a great honor, but also a push to keep exploring the visual and especially narrative possibilities that AI opens up,” Reale said in his acceptance. “The film is all about the act of observation: who imagines whom, and how emotions can arise from an illusion. AI makes me distill stories to their essence, giving rhythm and meaning to images that don’t exist in a traditional sense, yet can still evoke deep emotions.”
Jury president Muccino described the experience of judging as revelatory. “AI is reaching a point that is incredibly challenging, really a tsunami that will change the world completely,” he told the audience. “I was struck by the realism of certain shorts, but what really drove us is that the needle moves when something truly moves you. If you’re moved by something, that’s the sign of a voice that speaks to you in a way others don’t. Congratulations to all the creators: you are sublime, and as a filmmaker I was left speechless.”
The second prize of €5,000 was awarded to The Cinema That Never Was by Mark Wachholz. The filmmaker called it his “love letter to the lost dreams of cinema.” He explained that AI acted as his “co-archaeologist of imagination,” helping him explore a landscape of films that never came to be, stories untold and unrealized ideas that still haunt audiences. “The future of filmmaking isn’t automation,” Wachholz said, “it’s an amplification of vision. That’s why I’m so grateful for Reply AIFF now bringing glimpses of those unmade films back to life at one of the epicenters of film history.”
The third prize of €2,000 went to Un Rêve Liquide by Andrea Lommatzsch. Having worked with AI for years, Lommatzsch described the technology as a “true opportunity to create and make cinema.” The story, she said, was one she had carried inside her for years, and AI finally gave her the chance to bring it to the screen.
In addition to the three main prizes, two special awards highlighted distinctive contributions. The Lexus Visionary Award went to Instinct by Marcello Junior Costa, a work created entirely with AI-generated footage but structured like a traditional film. “Gen-AI makes filmmaking more democratic: anyone, anywhere, can now tell their stories,” Costa said. “I hope filmmakers keep using it responsibly to push creativity forward and give more voices a stage.”
The AI for Good Award, presented with the International Telecommunication Union, was awarded to Clown by Shanshan Jiang. The film tells the story of a talented clown who loses her sense of self while striving to please audiences. Jiang described AI as a collaborator that deepened her storytelling, extending artistic expression beyond traditional means.
TechRadar, which previewed the finalists in August, noted the diversity of approaches on display. The styles ranged from anime and noir to near-photorealistic worlds. Standout entries included Instinct’s Neanderthal-meets-skyscraper imagery and the VFX-driven Meme, Myself and AI by Private Island studio in the UK. The publication emphasized that the films proved AI “doesn’t have to mean the end of creativity,” echoing the jury’s insistence that technology serves as a catalyst rather than a replacement.
Filippo Rizzante, Reply’s CTO and one of the jurors, framed the festival as a “laboratory where cinema meets AI.” He argued that when used consciously, artificial intelligence amplifies artistic sensitivity rather than diminishing it. “The award-winning short films show that technology does not replace artistic sensitivity, but rather amplifies it, offering young talents new opportunities to experiment with languages, emotions, and innovative visions.”
By aligning with the Venice Film Festival and attracting thousands of international submissions, the Reply AI Film Festival has staked out a position as one of the premier venue for celebrating this exciting new facet of cinematic art.
