International Competition
The Most Beautiful Man in the World
Paolo Baiguera / Italy / 2026 / 18′
A taboo, a missing family history: that of Michele, an uncle he never knew, mowed down by AIDS and the heroin crisis that marked Italy between the 1980s and 1990s. Only twenty-five photographs remain of him, through which his nephew tries to give him a definite shape with the help of two opposing points of view: his mother’s memories and the artificial gaze of the Google Vision API, in the hope that something real might come out of this contrast. In the setting of an online call between mother and son, the film asks how we can remember what has never been talked about, questioning the value of the photographic medium, its fragile relationship with memory, and the dramatic tension between the warmth of a mother and the cold precision of an algorithm.
Director Paolo Baiguera
Production Il Varco, Ring Film, 5e6 film
Produced by Andrea Gatopoulos, Tommaso Bertani, Graziano Chiscuzzu
CINEMA INTRASTEVERE – Room 1, May 30, 12:00 p.m.
Q&A with the author
Paul Baguiera
Paolo Baguiera (born 1998) is a director and filmmaker. He has worked for several productions including Sky, Rai, Kon-Tiki Film, Indigo Film, ANG Film and Ring Film. He collaborated with Alessio Rigo de Righi on the film Heads or Tails?, in competition in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. His first film, El pütì pèrs, made its debut at the Venice Film Festival’s International Critics’ Week 2025, where it received a special mention.