World AI Film Festival

Why it matters

WAIFF stages AI cinema at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, the month before the Cannes Film Festival, though it is not part of it. Its categories mirror a traditional festival (feature, short, series, advertising, music video and youth), and a franchise of regional editions feeds a Cannes “Horizons” competition. That makes it the nearest thing the field has to an international festival circuit.

Editions

At the 2026 grand finale on April 22, Léo Cannone’s Costa Verde won Best WAIFF Film and Best AI Fantasy Film. Category winners included Qiu Sheng’s A Dollar Story (Best AI Action Film), Ibraheem Diab’s The Beginning (Best AI Emotion Film) and Nyko Oliver’s Apocalypse the art of Tovar (CapCut Prize). The Best AI Feature Film award went to Napoléon III, le prix de l’audace, a documentary by Jacques Edouard produced for Planète+ and Canal+ Docs; the catalogue links the cut published by the organiser. On the organiser’s prize list each film is followed by its category, which this record follows. Press reports name Agnès Jaoui as jury president, with Gong Li as festival president and Claude Lelouch as honorary president; the organiser’s own page does not list the jury.

The 2027 call is open until February 15, 2027, with a cheaper early-bird fee until November 15, 2026. Finalists are chosen between February 17 and March 7, and screened in Cannes on April 6 and 7, with the awards on April 7. Regional editions are announced on the official site, among them Istanbul on November 9, 2026, Abidjan, Naples, Seoul and São Paulo in early 2027.