“The Line,” the short film that explores new worlds, between science and science fiction
Cinema & Education.. Produced by the students of Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Bari, the film, created in the Architectural Design Laboratory IV, is an experiment between Architecture, Teaching, and Cinema
March 16, 2026
The line in geometry, interpreted by mathematics, an object of philosophy. The line as the arrow of time. It can mark a boundary, knowledge.
“A line can unite. Two parts can be divided by a line, but two points can be united by a line.” Thus begins “The Line,” the title of the short film by the students of the Architectural Design Laboratory of the fourth year of the Architecture degree programme at Poliba.
An innovative initiative for experimental teaching, aimed at involving students in a participatory way through the magic of cinema. A thin line between teaching and innovation, a powerful stimulus for students’ creativity, thanks to the critical use of generative Artificial Intelligence tools for images and video.
Objective: to encourage creative reflection on some contemporary themes related to architectural design, making use of the support and experimentation of the main software of digital culture and artificial intelligence, which thus become means to explore new horizons between science and science fiction. The film, drawing inspiration from real conditions and information about the present world, ventures into future projections capable of testing credible creativity.
The short film, developed in the Department of Architecture, Construction and Design (DARCOD), involved 33 students, 8 researchers and PhD candidates, and the faculty coordinator of the Laboratory of Design and of the initiative, Prof. Giuseppe Fallacara. The work, which lasted 4 months, from April to July 2025, resulted in an audio-video production of 26’ and 25”.
For its production, the entire class was transformed into a film studio following a multidisciplinary process in which they had to engage both with architectural-design elements and with the language of cinema itself, starting from the development of a story, moving on to scene management, and arriving at the actual acting part.
The plot. The colors and sounds of the desert at sunset open the scene. A comet star, like the one of Bethlehem, traces the trajectory in the sky. It is an invitation to follow it. Here, in the desert, a “special cube” awaits those who have gathered. It is the entrance to access the city of the future, The Line. The curious protagonist begins his journey. He leaves his present and enters the city of the future in 2125. He meets Noah, the city’s guide, who accompanies him into the new world and all its evolutions. Curiosity, however, overcomes the only imposed prohibition, and our protagonist returns, awakened from a restless sleep, to the reality of a present already shaken by climate change….
The short film, edited by Enzo Piglionica of Vertigo Imagining S.a.s., and enriched by the music of Radiodervish, to which the piece “Metamorphosis” was added, specially composed by pianist Alberto Iovene, draws inspiration from “The Line”, a revolutionary urban development project under construction in north-western Saudi Arabia. It is a linear city 170 km long, 200 metres wide and 500 metres high, designed to house 9 million people, without roads or cars, powered 100% by renewable energy.
After publication, in order to free it from the status of a purely academic exercise, the short film took part in various international competitions and film festivals, giving it the opportunity to measure itself against a real audience and professional contexts.
The results were surprising: after several selections, such as at the XV edition of the CortoDino Film Festival, the Roma Short Film Festival, and the Moonlight Short Film Fest, “La Linea” received an honorable mention at the Bracciano Film Festival and won at the New York Tristate International Film Festival in the “Best AI Film” category. The awards obtained demonstrated how the strength of the project lies precisely in its hybrid nature: a product born in an educational context, as an experimental and design exercise, yet capable of prompting reflection in the viewer.“The decision to conclude a Design Course with an experimental visual and communicative product such as a short film – says Prof. Fallacara – stems from a fundamental question: how can a Laboratory be made attractive and in step with the times? For this reason, an attempt was made to address these conditions by beginning already in the 2022-2023 academic year to incorporate the use of generative artificial intelligence into “traditional” teaching for the production of architectural “visions” that could serve as inspiration and support for the creative process. The promising results that enthusiasm and curiosity linked to innovation generated in terms of the students’ critical development encouraged a further experimental push: moving from the use of AI to develop static images to the use of AI to develop video. The resonance obtained confirms that experimenting with new expressive forms not only enriches teaching, but also produces culturally relevant outcomes.
Meanwhile, participation in festivals and competitions continues: “La Linea” has been nominated for the Belgrade International Film Festival and the Innuendo International Film Festival. Given the positive response obtained inside and outside the Politecnico, the initiative will not remain isolated. The project will evolve, in continuity, into a trilogy that will already involve, starting from the current 2025-26 academic year, another 55 students from the Architectural Design Laboratory. The new short film project already has a title in continuity: “Il Punto”.
The short film “La Linea” is published on the Poliba YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/QN3ZjEW-8rM
The article “The Line,” the short film that explores new worlds, between science and science fiction comes from Poliba Chronicle.
