A Prague Cinema Will Screen Your Five-Minute AI Film, and the Best One Wins $1,000
Cine Prague accepts AI-generated, AI-assisted and traditional shorts up to five minutes. Finalists screen at Kino Edison, with a $1,000 Grand Prix on 1 December 2026.
A five-minute film is a small thing to build and a large thing to finish. If you have one sitting on a drive, made with AI tools, a camera, or both, there is a cinema in Prague that would like to put it on a screen.
The Cine Prague AI Film Festival is an international short film festival that takes a deliberately mixed field. AI-generated work, AI-assisted work and traditional films all compete, provided they run to five minutes or under. Finalists screen at Kino Edison, and the festival date and Grand Prix announcement fall on 1 December 2026. Submissions close on 28 November 2026, which leaves a little under six weeks from today.
What you submit
The festival is open globally to filmmakers, producers, studios and distributors. The only length limit on the page is five minutes. There is no restriction on which AI tools you use, and traditional films without any AI are equally welcome, so this is not a contest where you need to justify your workflow.
Entries are listed under three categories: Short Film, Experimental and Documentary. Submission runs through FilmFreeway, and you can enter via the official FilmFreeway page. Submissions opened on 1 August 2026.
Prize structure
The headline prize is a $1,000 USD Grand Prix cash award. Category winners receive a handcrafted crystal trophy, and every official selection receives an Official Selection laurel. The page does not say how many category winners there will be or whether the Grand Prix is drawn from them, so treat the exact award count as unconfirmed until the festival publishes it.
The cash is a single prize. Laurels and a Prague screening carry real festival value for a showreel or a later submission elsewhere, but they are not money, and it is worth entering with that in mind.
Terms worth reading
The entry fee is not stated on the contest listing. It points to FilmFreeway for the figure, so check the fee on the entry page before you plan around it. FilmFreeway festivals commonly charge to submit, so assume entry may cost money until you have seen the number.
The listing summarises the contest and does not reproduce the festival's full rules. That means the details creators usually care about most, such as who retains rights to a submitted film, whether screening or promotional licences are requested, and whether finalist work is publicly disclosed, are not visible in the text we reviewed. Read the full terms on FilmFreeway before you submit, particularly if your film uses licensed music or footage.
The page gives a deadline date but no cutoff time or timezone. Submit with a day in hand rather than aiming for the final evening, since a payment or upload problem at midnight is hard to fix.
Before you enter
Check the fee and the full rules on FilmFreeway, confirm your film is five minutes or under including credits, and keep a copy of your tool and licence notes in case the festival asks about them. Entry closes on 28 November 2026.
Source: Cine Prague AI Film Festival 2026 on AI Film Contests