BERLIN – This year, A Forum Special, section dedicated to experimental works complementing the main Berlinale Forum program, addresses the theme of creative production in the age of artificial intelligence, and showcases the Italian short L'uomo più bello del mondo (The Most Beautiful Man in the World) by Paolo Baiguera, whose debut short, El Puti Pèrs, received a Special Mention at the 2025 Venice International Film Critics' Week.
The Most Beautiful Man in the World is an Italian production from Il Varco, Ring Film, and 5e6 film; international sales are handled by Gargantua Film; it was developed at the "Nouvelle Bug Vol. 4" workshop in residence at Revine Lago.
Straddling documentary, visual essay, and formal experimentation, the short is a reflection on the value of images and the culture of memory. The Most Beautiful Man in the World questions what it means today to analyse and judge, with a story of family repression about a man, the director's uncle, who died of HIV and heroin addiction in 1980s Italy. In part due to the stigma extending from an era marked by the weight of social judgment, his name resonates within the family with the echo of a taboo, and only 25 photographs of him. Paolo Baiguera builds his story from those photos, simultaneously examining the "warm" memories of his mother, whom he asks to re-examine the photographs, and the “cold” gaze of an artificial intelligence, Google Vision API, which statistically analyses the data from those images.
The reflection on the contemporary value of looking is interesting: the AI ??tool analyses the photos, sterilely breaking down the images while also aligned with a precise cultural imagery of judgment that sums up broader collective opinion. On the other hand, the mother's empathetic comment reflects a personal and family emotional memory. From this involuntary "pas de deux," and the contradictions or surprising overlaps of judgment that emerge, the man’s repressed history is slowly layered and built upon.
After the screening and Q&A in Berlin, Paolo Baiguera joined a panel organized by the Berlinale discussing the aesthetic exchange between artists and AI models. Gathered together at the panel were the directors at the festival who approach AI not as an isolated technological issue, but as an aesthetic, political, and social infrastructure upon which they built their presented works. Other guest authors included: Ava Leandra Kleber and Elisa Deutloff (MegatrashwannabebigstarxD), Narges Kalhor (Love Your Nails!), Daniel Mann (THE RECCE), Almagul Menlibayeva (AI REALISM - Qantar 2022), and Georg Tiller (The Valley where LOAB Lives).