Canadian filmmaker Robert Gaudette, with his short film A Face Only A Mother Could Love, has won the Reply AI Film Festival 2026, the international competition created by Reply to explore new frontiers in cinematic language through the use of artificial intelligence. The award was presented on Sunday 6 September in Venice, during a ceremony organised by Reply and Mastercard at the Match Point Arena, set up at Tennis Club Venezia on the Lido, alongside the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.
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Now in its third edition, the Reply AI Film Festival received more than 3,000 short films from 76 countries this year, establishing itself as an international vantage point on the evolving relationship between creativity, cinema and new technologies. Ten films reached the final, selected for their originality, production quality and ability to integrate artificial intelligence across different stages of the creative process, from scriptwriting to post-production.
Led by Oscar®-winning director Gabriele Salvatores, the international jury – comprising Rob Minkoff, Catherine Hardwicke, Giacomo Mineo, Jed Weintrob, Jacopo Reale, Christina Lee Storm, Nils Hartmann, Brian Welk, Denise Negri, Filippo Rizzante and Guillem Martinez Roura – selected the short films that stood out for their originality, production quality and thoughtful use of AI throughout the creative process, from writing to post-production.
“I could have given an award to almost every short film presented. I was deeply impressed by the ability of young directors and artists to combine ideas and poetry with technology. I arrived with a degree of scepticism and leave with renewed hope” said jury chair Gabriele Salvatores.
Robert Gaudette impressed the jury with A Face Only A Mother Could Love, an AI-generated short film that follows Marcel, a solitary Parisian dancer born with a facial disfigurement. His secluded and lonely life changes when a woman decides to approach him, giving rise to a profound connection. The use of Grok, Nano Banana and Seedance provided the only viable way to bring the screenplay to the screen, overcoming the lack of budget, cast and crew.
“This win means a great deal to me and comes as a real surprise. I began working on this film as an experiment, using a story I had written some time ago. I had no intention of submitting the short to film festivals, nor did I expect it to achieve any kind of success. Receiving this recognition feels surreal. It is as though I have moved into another timeline or stepped into somebody else’s life” said Robert Gaudette.
Second place went to Le Drip by American filmmakers Alex Naghavi and Ezra Li, an animated short depicting a fish’s final day on Earth through living oil paintings whose dense, textured brushstrokes move across the screen. Third place went to Centenarian Kindergarten by Chinese visual-artist collective 2xLabs. Set in a dystopian future in 2090, where no children are being born, the film follows four centenarians as they escape from a sterile facility in which AI assistants impose compulsory happiness, in an attempt to reclaim their human imperfections.
Alongside the main awards, further prizes recognised works distinguished by their experimentation and impact. The Reply AI Studios Grand Prix was awarded to Website by English filmmaker Jiaze Li, in recognition of its outstanding use of artificial intelligence within the creative process. The animated short The Child of the Sea by Spanish filmmaker Ibai Abad also received a special mention for its experimental use of AI. Through a hybrid workflow combining Magnific with human-led editing, AI acted as a production assistant, making it possible to create a vast, tactile stop-motion universe that would have been economically and technically unfeasible using traditional physical methods. The AI for Good Award, presented in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), went to 2xLabs, whose Centenarian Kindergarten offered the most effective interpretation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Completing the awards for the 2026 edition was the Community Award, powered by WeShort. In the weeks leading up to the ceremony, members of the public were able to watch and vote online for the ten finalist films, ultimately awarding the prize to Website by Jiaze Li.
Another highlight of the day in Venice was Labyrinth Reply, the new Reply Group company dedicated to AI-generated film and audiovisual productions, created by bringing together Labyrinth Studio’s creative and production expertise with Reply’s technology ecosystem. The day opened with two interactive films produced by OOVIE Studios in collaboration with Labyrinth Reply, presented through two Music Interactive Movies sessions combining live music, cinema and artificial intelligence. Celebrated film scores were reinterpreted through two original short films by Jacopo Reale, AI Creative Director at Labyrinth Studio and winner of the AIFF 2025. The first session featured a new performance of the interactive short inspired by Il Postino, previously presented at the 2026 World AI Film Festival in Cannes and developed around the original music of Luis Bacalov. The second marked the world premiere of Alberto e il mare, an interactive short set to Ennio Morricone’s original score for Giuseppe Tornatore’s Malèna.
“We can see a very clear shift in this year’s short films: it is not only the visual quality that has improved, but above all the maturity with which AI is being integrated into the creative process, through increasingly structured and hybrid workflows. Labyrinth Reply was born precisely from this evolution: through our collaboration with the team that won the 2025 edition, we have built a company dedicated to film and entertainment, capable of bringing these new languages and production capabilities into real-world projects” said Filippo Rizzante, CTO of Reply.
Reply
Reply [EXM, STAR: REY, ISIN: IT0005282865] specialises in the design and implementation of solutions based on new communication channels and digital media. As a network of highly specialised companies, Reply supports major industrial groups in the telecom and media, industry and services, banking and insurance, and public sectors in defining and developing business models enabled by the new paradigms of AI, cloud computing, digital media and the internet of things. Reply’s services include: consulting, system integration and digital services. www.reply.com
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