AI Film Contests›Guides›7 AI Film Festivals Closing September 30, 2026 — Led by Runway's Free $25,000+ Prize
7 AI Film Festivals Closing September 30, 2026 — Led by Runway's Free $25,000+ Prize
Seven AI film festivals close on the same day this year: September 30, 2026. No other date on the 2026 calendar carries this many dedicated AI-film deadlines at once.
Runway AI Film Festival leads the pack with a free-entry $25,000+ prize pool and a New York screening, followed by the We Are Human Festival's Paris open call (10,000 euros across three prizes, also free) and five more festivals in Taipei, Marbella, Warsaw, Hollywood and Tokyo charging tiered FilmFreeway or Festhome fees. This guide lists every one of the seven with its exact prize, fee and eligibility rule pulled from the official page, five more deadlines landing the same week that are easy to miss if you only watch the 30th, and one thing worth knowing before you submit anywhere: not every AI-contest deadline you find online is still live.
The short answer: seven festivals, one deadline
In prize order: Runway AI Film Festival (New York screening, $25,000+, free) is the largest dedicated AI-film competition on this list by prize and submission volume. The We Are Human Festival's Paris open call (Forum des images screening, 10,000 euro total across three prizes, free) is the only one here that disqualifies fully AI-generated work outright. CSFCCA International AI Film Festival (Taipei, Golden Mars Grand Prize statuette, paid FilmFreeway tiers) and WAIMF — World AI Movie Festival (Marbella, undisclosed cash Grand Prix plus ten category trophies, paid FilmFreeway tiers) both stage in-person award ceremonies within a week of each other in early October. On Art AI Film Festival (Warsaw, screening plus jury recognition, tiered FilmFreeway fee) and the AI International Music Video Festival (Hollywood, jury and audience awards, FilmFreeway fee) round out the non-cash side. AI Film Festival Japan, running as part of AIFJ's Tokyo Innovation Base program October 31 to November 2, charges from $29 via Festhome and awards CapCut- and ElevenLabs-sponsored categories on top of its own Best AI Movie prize.
Runway AI Film Festival: free entry, $25,000+, and a New York screening
Runway's own festival runs annually in the fall, and 2026's edition — per festival-tracking coverage from NerdFX's 2026 submission guide — carries a free entry fee and a prize pool north of $25,000, with selected films screened in New York. It sits alongside the New York/LA-based AI Film Festival (AIFF) and the quarterly Sora Film Festival as one of the highest-volume dedicated AI festivals by submission count industry-wide. Because Runway does not publish a hard cap on entries and the fee is zero, filmmakers with a finished 2026 short lose nothing by submitting even as a long shot; the same NerdFX guide notes the sweet spot for AI-festival shorts runs three to eight minutes, with films under three minutes struggling to land narrative depth and films past ten minutes straining current AI consistency.
We Are Human Festival: a free Paris open call — but fully AI-generated films are disqualified
This is the one deadline on the list with a hard eligibility trap. The We Are Human Festival's first edition, per its official call-for-films page, is built on a 30-year, 30-article structure keyed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — 2026 is dedicated to Article 1, on freedom and equal dignity. Submissions must be human/AI hybrid creation: the rules explicitly state that works generated solely by AI without human creative direction are not eligible, and every entry requires an accompanying Ethics Notebook. Submissions opened June 1, are free to enter, run 1 to 10 minutes, require entrants aged 18 and up, and close September 30, 2026. Selected films screen in Paris at the Forum des images on November 24, 2026, then travel to partner cities including Sao Paulo, New York, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Quito and Geneva. Total prizes run 10,000 euros across three awards: a 5,000 euro Grand Prix, a 3,000 euro Best Screenplay prize, and a 2,000 euro Ethics Prize. If your film leans on AI generation with no human-directed hybrid layer, this is not your festival — but if it is, the multi-city screening circuit is worth more than the cash.
Three paid-entry options: CSFCCA Taipei, WAIMF Marbella, and Warsaw's On Art Festival
CSFCCA International AI Film Festival awards its Golden Mars Grand Prize statuette in Taipei, with an in-person screening and industry exchange on November 20; entry runs through paid FilmFreeway tiers and the festival accepts narrative shorts, animation, music videos, experimental work, concept trailers and commercials, open worldwide. WAIMF — World AI Movie Festival holds its inaugural edition October 7-8 at Red Dog Cinema in Puerto Banus, Marbella, judged by an international jury of producers and directors, with a Grand Prix cash prize plus trophy across ten award categories; minimum runtime is four minutes, completed after January 1, 2025, with English subtitles required for non-English films. On Art AI Film Festival in Warsaw screens 40 short films and 10 medium-length or feature entries at its November finale, open to professional and independent filmmakers across fiction, animation, documentary, video art and experimental work, with the prize built around the Warsaw screening slot and jury recognition rather than cash.
AI International Music Video Festival and AI Film Festival Japan round out the pile-up
The AI International Music Video Festival, run by the nonprofit The AI Project out of Hollywood, spun out of the AI International Film Festival specifically for music videos whose visuals, animation or music are AI-made, plus live-action and documentary work on AI themes; both horizontal and vertical formats are accepted, entry is via FilmFreeway, and the work must be original to the submitting artist, who carries copyright-compliance responsibility. AI Film Festival Japan (AIFJ) closes its Tokyo Innovation Base program the same day, with awards for Best AI Movie, Animation, Creative and Film Music plus sponsored categories from CapCut and ElevenLabs; entry starts at $29 via Festhome, with FilmFreeway tiers priced separately, and the festival itself runs October 31 to November 2 in Tokyo.
Before you submit anywhere: verify the deadline is still live
AI-film contest trackers move fast because the category itself moves fast, and that speed cuts both ways. Some of the highest-profile AI film prizes announced in the last year — including at least one seven-figure award tied to a single splashy creator-economy summit — ran exactly once on a fixed calendar, crowned a winner, and never reopened the same submission window, even though the announcement copy and directory listings describing them kept circulating online for months afterward. Before you spend a submission fee or a finished film's premiere status on any AI contest, click through to the organizer's own site — not just a directory, blog roundup or aggregator — and confirm the current year's submission window is explicitly open, not simply that the program exists. Programs branded around a single annual event (a summit, a conference, a brand activation) are the highest-risk category for this, because their landing pages often stay live and unchanged long after the entry window shuts. All seven festivals in this guide were checked against their own official page or FilmFreeway/Festhome listing, not a secondary source, specifically because of how often AI-contest information goes stale.
Five more deadlines land the same week — don't stop at September 30
The pile-up doesn't start or end on the 30th. Tyrannus Angel Awards 2026, a faith-driven red-carpet gala in Los Angeles judging on emotional impact over technical showmanship, closes September 20 with a $50,000 total prize pool across Original, Adapted and Animated divisions ($30 per film via FilmFreeway). The AI International Film Festival's Hollywood edition — the world's first AI film festival, running monthly since 2021 with a 53-category program — closes September 21, the same day as the free-entry Qolaba AI Film Challenge, a social-first competition that requires posting your entry publicly to Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, X or Facebook for a shot at $3,000 across four tracks. The AI Song Contest's Bangkok edition, a Eurovision-style AI-music competition, closes September 27 with $1,000 cash and a flight to the live Award Show on November 29. Days after the pile-up, Valencia's FESTIAV closes October 4 (2,250 euros in category prizes, 5-20 euro entry) and Slamdance's DIG strand — the festival that launched Tarantino and the Russo Brothers — closes October 6 with a $25,000 AGBO Fellowship from the Russo Brothers plus a Utopia theatrical distribution deal for the winner.
How to actually hit all seven deadlines with one finished film
You do not need seven different films. A single finished short under ten minutes, disclosed honestly as AI-assisted, clears the technical bar for most of these festivals simultaneously — the exceptions are We Are Human, whose human/AI hybrid requirement and Ethics Notebook rule out fully AI-generated work, and WAIMF's four-minute minimum runtime, which rules out very short pieces. Build your submission order around cost first: submit to the two free festivals — Runway and We Are Human, if your film qualifies for the latter — before spending anything on the paid FilmFreeway or Festhome tiers at CSFCCA, WAIMF, On Art Warsaw or AIFJ. Prepare one FilmFreeway-ready package once (film file, short and long synopsis, director's statement explaining your AI process, an AI-disclosure statement, three to five stills, a poster and an optional 30-60 second trailer) and reuse it across every submission portal rather than customizing per festival — the deliverables list is close to identical across all seven. Submit at least 48 hours before midnight on the 30th; several of these festivals run on FilmFreeway's own server clock, not your local time zone, and a last-minute upload failure has no grace period once a deadline closes.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many AI film contests close on September 30, 2026?
Seven dedicated AI film festivals: Runway AI Film Festival (New York, $25,000+, free), the We Are Human Festival's Paris open call (10,000 euros total, free), CSFCCA International AI Film Festival (Taipei), WAIMF — World AI Movie Festival (Marbella), On Art AI Film Festival (Warsaw), the AI International Music Video Festival (Hollywood), and AI Film Festival Japan (Tokyo). It is the single busiest AI-film deadline day of 2026.
Which September 30 deadlines are free to enter?
Two are completely free: Runway AI Film Festival and the We Are Human Festival's Call for Films. The remaining five — CSFCCA, WAIMF, On Art Warsaw, the AI International Music Video Festival and AI Film Festival Japan — charge tiered entry fees through FilmFreeway or Festhome, typically starting in the $20-40 range.
Can a fully AI-generated film enter the We Are Human Festival?
No. The festival's official rules state that works generated solely by AI without human creative direction are not eligible — every submission must be human/AI hybrid creation with an accompanying Ethics Notebook. It is the one September 30 deadline built around AI as a tool for human-directed storytelling rather than as a subject in its own right, themed in 2026 around Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
What is the biggest cash prize among the September 30 deadlines?
Runway AI Film Festival's free-entry $25,000+ pool is the largest confirmed cash prize among the seven, with selected films screened in New York. The We Are Human Festival splits 10,000 euros across a Grand Prix, a Best Screenplay prize and an Ethics Prize. Some directories list larger seven-figure AI-film prizes with September deadlines, but several of those tied to single annual summits or brand events have already run their 2026 cycle and closed months earlier than their listing suggests — always confirm directly on the organizer's own page before treating a big number as still open.
Are there AI film deadlines right before or after September 30?
Yes. Tyrannus Angel Awards ($50,000 pool) closes September 20, the AI International Film Festival Hollywood edition and the Qolaba AI Film Challenge both close September 21, and the AI Song Contest Bangkok edition closes September 27. Right after the pile-up, Valencia's FESTIAV closes October 4 and Slamdance's DIG strand — with a $25,000 AGBO Fellowship from the Russo Brothers — closes October 6.
Can I submit the same film to multiple September 30 festivals?
Yes, and most AI filmmakers do — festival submission platforms like FilmFreeway are built for simultaneous multi-festival entry, and none of these seven festivals require exclusivity at the submission stage. The only film that cannot go everywhere on this list is a fully AI-generated one with no human-directed hybrid layer, which the We Are Human Festival disqualifies, and anything under four minutes, which falls short of WAIMF's runtime minimum.