The Sweet Idleness

The Sweet Idleness is a feature film announced on 1 October 2025 by the Italian-Canadian producer Andrea Iervolino, who presents it as the first feature directed by an AI agent. It is credited to The Andrea Iervolino Company AI, with Andrea Biglione (spelled Buglione on Wikipedia) as writer. IMDb lists it as a Drama and Sci-Fi film with a February 2026 United States release. Its running time has not been published, and the only video found is a 51-second teaser on YouTube.

The director is billed as FellinAI, a name chosen in homage to Federico Fellini. The poster calls it a multi-agent system by TAIC AI, housed at The Andrea Iervolino Company AI. Iervolino says he takes the role of human-on-the-loop, the producer who supervises the AI's choices, and Biglione, director of Almeno tu nell'universo and N.E.E.T., is named as the system's developer and human-in-the-loop. The cast comes from Actor+, the company's in-house agency, which builds digital actors from real people who lend their image; Panorama Audiovisual quotes Iervolino calling FellinAI "a director who never sleeps, while Actor+ is a company of actors who live beyond the screen." No source names the models behind FellinAI. Iervolino is known for producing Ferrari and To the Bone, and he says the project is not meant to replace traditional cinema.

The teaser was released with the announcement and promised a premiere in February 2026. No release has been confirmed since: a DocumentaryTube examination, with a status dated 18 August 2026, found no independent record of a public release, festival premiere, distributor or streaming deal, and Wikipedia, last edited on 28 September 2026, still lists it as upcoming. The teaser had 31,688 YouTube views when read on 29 September 2026.

The announcement came days after the row over the digital performer Tilly Norwood, and coverage folded the two together. Deadline and Screen Rant quoted SAG-AFTRA's statement against synthetic performers, and DocumentaryTube reported concerns about replaced workers, training data, copyright, consent for digital replicas and disclosure, with Directors UK arguing that AI cannot replace human vision. Reel360 mocked the teaser's weightless, uncanny movement, and essays at Kahrz and The Consciousness AI asked whether a system without a point of view can be an author.

Coverage treats it as notable chiefly as a claimed first: Iervolino bills it as the world's first AI-directed feature, although one outlet notes the reporting establishes an announced production with a human-in-the-loop workflow, not a film made without people.