A new Rome festival is screening films made with AI, and entries close on 31 October

Rome has a new festival for films where artificial intelligence does real creative work, and its first edition is taking submissions until 31 October 2026. VISIONARIA is organised as an International Festival of AI Cinema & Creativity, and it is open to filmmakers, artists, studios, students and creative teams from anywhere in the world.

The bar for entry is substance, not purity. Your film does not need to be fully generated, and it does not need to be a premiere. What the festival asks is that AI plays a significant, non-incidental part in the creative or production process. If you can explain what the tools did and why the film would not exist in the same form without them, you are the kind of entrant the programme is looking for.

What you submit

The page describes six award categories, and the listing shows three of them by name: Short Film, Animation and Documentary. The remaining three are not named in the information we could verify, so check the festival's FilmFreeway page for the full list before choosing where to enter.

Any AI tool is permitted. There is no stated restriction on software, models or workflow, which leaves you free to use whatever suits the project. Entries are made through the festival's FilmFreeway page, and submissions opened on 21 September 2026.

The listing on the AI Film Contests directory was last verified on 10 October 2026, so details may have moved since. Read the festival's own page before you pay or upload anything.

Prize structure

This is a recognition prize, not a cash one. Winners receive laurels and jury recognition in each category, and no cash prize is stated anywhere on the page. No funding, credits or distribution deal are mentioned either.

What the festival adds around the awards is exposure and context. It runs talks, masterclasses and immersive installations alongside the screenings, and the festival date is 27 November 2026 in Rome, Italy. For a first-edition event, laurels are the sort of credit that is worth having mainly if you plan to build a festival run for the film, or if you want a Rome screening on your record.

Terms worth reading

The entry fee is not published on the directory page. It says only to see FilmFreeway, so the cost is unconfirmed here. Assume entry may cost money until you have seen the figure on the submission page.

We could not see the festival's full rules, so there is nothing we can confirm about rights, licences or how your work might be shown or promoted. Before submitting, read the terms on FilmFreeway for any licence the festival takes over your film, any public disclosure of your tools or process, and any conditions on where else the film can screen.

This is also a first-year festival with no track record to check. That is not a warning in itself, but it means there are no past editions to judge the programme, the jury or the audience by.

Before you enter

The deadline is 31 October 2026. No cutoff time or timezone is published, so submit at least a day early rather than gambling on a midnight close in an unknown timezone. Confirm the fee, the full category list and the rights terms on the official entry page, then upload.

Source: VISIONARIA on AI Film Contests