Feature Film
Blurred Horizon: MindPods
Jeff Synthesized
Festivals · Festival · Independent
Austin AI Film Festival
A Texas nonprofit AI film festival with juried category awards, an official selection and filmmaker craft sessions.
- Organiser
- Austin AI Film Festival, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit
- With
- Presenting partners Beeble and Dreamina AI (2026)
- Held
- Annual
2026
ResultsZACH Theatre, Austin, Texas · Results published 17 Oct 2026
Winners
Series
The Reformation Room
Luke Mazey
Music Video
PsychoPsypher
Eddie Jacobson
Short Film
The Morisca
Seif Abdalla
Micro-Short
Kev
Mike Bennion
Hybrid
狭間 Hazama
Victor Moreno
Avant-Garde
SIMUL/ACTION #1
Francesca Fini
Documentary
The Sultana Disaster of 1865
Gavin Carlton
Student Film
Listen To The Heart Of The Wood
Yunqi Zha, Cao Xinrui & Wang Dong
Brand / Commercial
DIA PRÉSENCE
Claudia Lalau
Trailer
Actor Zero
Zurab Dzhidzhilava
Honorable Mention
Le Drip
Alex Naghavi
Honorable Mention
The Yellow Knight
Brian James Gage
Also selected
- Official selectionA Face Only a Mother Could LoveRobert Gaudette
- Official selectionBlurred Horizon: Hate?Jeff Synthesized
Key dates
About this edition
- Eligibility
- One to 90 minutes, with a majority of shots created with AI software (live-action structure for the Hybrid category); the screenplay must be largely human-authored. Paid entry.
- Prizes
- A cash prize for each category winner; amounts are not stated on the organiser's page.
- Jury
- Louie Schwartzberg, Sarba Das, Jon Flynn, Rick Carter, Seema Mathur and BLVCKL!GHT.
Why it matters
Austin pairs a juried competition with craft sessions in which filmmakers explain how their films were made. Its rules require largely human-authored screenplays, and its eleven categories run from micro-shorts to features, series, music videos and hybrid live action. That breadth makes its results a curated cross-section of AI filmmaking in a given year.
The 2026 edition
A selection committee chose a 40-film official selection, and a named panel of judges picked one winner per category, announced on October 17 at ZACH Theatre. MindPods from Blurred Horizon won Feature Film, The Reformation Room won Series and PsychoPsypher won Music Video. Other category winners include The Morisca (Short Film), Kev (Micro-Short), Hazama (Hybrid) and The Sultana Disaster of 1865 (Documentary). The Yellow Knight and Le Drip received honourable mentions. The avant-garde, brand and trailer winners are linked from their results but are not narrative films, so they are not catalogue entries; the student winner has no public release.
The festival abbreviates itself as AAIFF, as does the unrelated Astana AI Film Festival. 2026 was its second edition; cash prize amounts, entry fees and a 2027 call have not been published.