1st Place
Listen to Meh
rococo_table_radical
Festivals · Competition · Brand or platform
Higgsfield Global Film Festival
Higgsfield's $1 million online film competition, judged by a jury alongside a subscriber audience vote.
- Organiser
- Higgsfield
- Held
- First edition
2026
ResultsOnline · Results published 31 Oct 2026
Winners
2nd Place
Fukushima
aist
3rd Place
The Field Agent
zackmmurray
Audience Choice
The Tortoise and the Hare
benhamin
Honorable Mention
BALLAST
lejardinier
Honorable Mention
FIX
production_pi_korea
Honorable Mention
ROAR
vermeer_ice_9000
Honorable Mention
Soulless
yoav_yariv
Honorable Mention
THE COAT
davidacfilm
Honorable Mention
Morek
zezumre
Honorable Mention
Lullaby
keigo_matsumaru
Honorable Mention
GIRLS / DEMONS
tambv
Honorable Mention
The Elevator
curious_media_2026
Honorable Mention
HUNGER
sssacccade
Key dates
- Entries open↗
- Deadline↗11:59 pm UTC, per the rules updated on September 16; the August blog had said September 15
- Shortlist↗126 films shortlisted
- Voting opens↗Audience Choice voting for paid subscribers opened with the shortlist
- Voting closes↗11:59 pm UTC
- Results↗Date of the winners step on the organiser's contest timeline
About this edition
- Brief
- Freeform, any genre.
- Eligibility
- Registered Higgsfield users aged 18 or over, solo or teams of up to four. Minimum runtime 3:00, recommended maximum 5:00; English subtitles or voice-over. All AI images and video had to be generated on Higgsfield in a dedicated festival project during the generation window, and all audio had to be AI-generated (a contest rule, not evidence of any one film's toolchain).
- Prizes
- $1,000,000 in cash across 14 placements: $500,000 first, $200,000 second, $100,000 third, $100,000 Audience Choice and ten $10,000 honourable mentions.
- Jury
- The winners page quotes Paul W. S. Anderson, Alex Proyas and Phedon Papamichael; the August announcement named Edwin Catmull, Phedon Papamichael and Paul W. S. Anderson.
Why it matters
With $1 million in cash, this is the largest prize pool among the platform contests the journal has checked. It also tested a rule that matters for anyone studying how AI films are made: every generated image and shot had to be produced inside one project on the platform, so each winning film’s project is published alongside it. That makes the winners a record of process, not only a list of titles.
The 2026 edition
Entries ran from August 10 to September 16, 2026. Higgsfield’s creative team screened entries into a shortlist of 126 films, announced on October 10. An independent jury then judged the shortlist while paid subscribers voted for the Audience Choice award, which closed on October 15. The organiser’s contest page lists 5,000 final films submitted, 67,223 projects started and 55,628 participants from 176 countries. The 67,223 figure, quoted in the shortlist announcement, counts projects started, not films entered.
Listen to Meh, released by Buenos Aires’ Purga Studio, won first place, followed by AIST’s Fukushima and The Field Agent; The Tortoise and the Hare took the Audience Choice award. The organiser credits winners by platform username only, so each film page explains how the maker was identified. The honourable mentions link to their projects on Higgsfield.
The final jury is not settled in the organiser’s own material: the winners page and the August announcement name different panels. The exact day the winners were published is taken from the contest timeline.