Fifty-six free-to-enter AI film contests are open right now, with prizes ranging from $1,000 screening grants to $300,000 prize pools

There are, at the time of writing, 56 AI film contests open for free submission, and the directory at AI Film Contests collects all of them in one place with daily fact-checking against live sources. That is a genuinely unusual resource: most filmmakers find out about festivals through word of mouth or FilmFreeway browsing, which means missing smaller but well-funded opportunities like the HKBU Future Film Fest's USD 66,000 pool or the We Are Human Festival's 10,000-euro total spread across Paris, New York and Johannesburg screenings.

The range of what counts as "prize" here is wide, and the directory is honest about that. Some contests offer cash outright: the Pippit AI Video Contest offers $10,000, the Runway AI Film Festival offers $25,000 or more, and the Chroma Awards Season 2 (backed by ElevenLabs, Google Cloud and others) offers over $175,000 in cash plus more than $1 million in tool credits. Others offer screening slots, laurels, software credits from Runway or Adobe, or festival memberships. A few, like the AKOOL Creator Clash with its $300,000 in "Creator Rewards", use prize language that warrants scrutiny before you submit, since reward pools distributed across many participants can mean very small individual payouts. Read each contest's individual terms carefully.

What you submit

The directory covers short films, features, music videos, animation, experimental work and, in at least one case (the OpenCV AI Competition), developer applications using image or video analysis. AI involvement ranges from "significant creative component" at festivals like the Rome AI Festival (RAIF) to "100% AI-generated" requirements at the AI Film and Ads Awards Bali. Several festivals, including the HKBU Future Film Fest and the We Are Human Festival, require documentation of how AI tools were used, so prepare a production notes or ethics notebook if you plan to submit broadly.

Film lengths vary by contest: the Rome AI Festival accepts shorts up to 20 minutes, AI Film Festival Japan wants 90 seconds to 15 minutes, and the I'Mpossible Film Festival includes a microfilm category. Check individual deadlines carefully, as several contests on this list close within days of the current date.

Prize structure across the directory

Highlights from currently open, free-to-enter contests:

- Pippit AI Video Contest — $10,000 cash, deadline 10 September 2026 (check if still open)
- Chroma Awards Season 2 — $175,000+ cash, $1M+ in credits, deadline 31 December 2026
- Runway AI Film Festival — $25,000+, deadline 30 September 2026
- We Are Human Festival — 10,000 euros total (Grand Prix 5,000 euros), deadline 30 September 2026
- HKBU Future Film Fest — USD 66,000 total pool, USD 5,000 for Best AI Short, deadline 31 October 2026
- AKOOL Creator Clash — $300,000 in Creator Rewards, deadline 15 September 2026
- Hollywood AI Short Film Awards (HASFA) 2027 — $2,750 in cash, ceremony February 2027, deadline 20 January 2027
- AI Song Contest 2026 Bangkok — $1,000 cash plus trip to Bangkok Award Show, deadline 27 September 2026

Several festivals offer non-cash prizes that carry real value: theatrical screenings in Seoul, Ubud, Istanbul, Monaco, Dubai and Warsaw, plus industry exchange sessions in Taipei.

Terms worth reading

The directory links to individual contest pages but does not aggregate terms in one place, so you will need to visit each entry page before submitting. Key things to check on each contest's own page: rights granted to the festival over your film (some require non-exclusive publication rights as a condition of the prize, as AI ZONE explicitly does), eligibility by country or age (HKBU requires filmmakers aged 30 and under from recognised post-secondary institutions), and AI tool documentation requirements. The We Are Human Festival requires an Ethics Notebook submitted alongside the film. The Pippit AI contest requires at least 70% of footage to be generated natively on the Pippit platform, which limits tool flexibility.

Entry to every contest listed on this page is free, which the directory verifies daily. If a contest adds a fee, it moves off this listing. That is a useful filter, though it does not mean every prize is cash or that every rights clause is creator-friendly.

The directory is available at aifilmcontests.com/contests/free and updates daily. Given how many deadlines fall in mid to late September 2026, check the listing promptly if you have work ready to submit.

Source: AI Film Contests — Free to Enter