AI Christmas Film Contests 2026: Cue Xmas '26 Closes Nov 20, Plus Where Else a Holiday Short Can Win

It is free, takes one Christmas AI short film or AI music video between 2:00 and 6:00 long, closes November 20 at 11:59 PM ET, and puts its finalists on cable television on December 12. Curious Refuge, which ran the first AI holiday film competition in 2023, had not announced a 2026 edition when we checked its site on October 19. So if you are making a holiday short this season, plan around Cue first and line up four or five open-theme contests that will happily take the same film.

Cue Xmas '26: the rules that decide whether you qualify

Everything here comes from cuefilmfest.com, read on October 19, 2026. Submissions opened October 5 and close November 20 at 11:59 PM Eastern. Entry is free, and each filmmaker enters one film in one of two formats, an AI Short Film or an AI Music Video. Both must run between 2:00 and 6:00, with six minutes as a hard maximum.

The rule most likely to knock out an entry is about editing. Cue requires "multiple intentional shots or sequences shaped by your own final edit," and says outright that a single unedited AI-generated clip is not eligible. A 20-second Veo or Kling generation looped to two minutes will be rejected at the rules check. You also submit a 16:9 master; a vertical 9:16 cut is optional and only requested for selected films. Every entry carries a creative brief and a summary of your AI process, so keep notes on which tools did what while you work.

The festival's October 5 announcement on Business Wire described shorter films, one minute or 30 seconds to three minutes. The official site now says 2:00 to 6:00. Follow the site. A 90-second film that would have qualified under the press release will not qualify now.

How Cue picks its finalists and winners

Judging runs in three stages. From November 20 to 30, after rights and rules checks, a selection committee reviews every eligible film for originality, storytelling, craft and purposeful use of AI. Approved entries then go live on the site under an alias, where the public can watch, rate and like them.

On December 1, Cue announces its selection using a weighted ranking: 50% committee score, 25% public rating, 20% likes and 5% views. That ranking produces 10 short films plus the top music video, an 11-film short selection, and a separate set of 10 music videos, for 20 works in all. Public voting then runs from December 1 until 8:00 PM EST on December 12, and viewer scores and jury scores count equally, 50/50, toward the four awards.

Your audience matters twice. Half the selection ranking comes from public ratings, likes and views, and half the final award score comes from viewers. A filmmaker who shares the approved entry link with their own following has a measurable advantage under these rules, so plan to promote the film between approval and December 12.

The four awards, and why the music video lane is less crowded

Cue Xmas '26 gives four cash awards: Best Film (the grand prize, announced last on the broadcast), Best Image, Best Sound and Best AI Music Video. The cash amounts and presenting sponsors were still listed as "to be announced" on October 19, so do not enter expecting a specific figure.

Eligibility differs by format. Short films compete for Best Film, Best Image and Best Sound. AI music videos are eligible for all four, including the three short-film awards. On paper, a music video entry has one more award to win and its own pool of 10 selection slots.

The watch page shows how the field is shaping up. On October 19 it listed 47 approved entries by genre tag. Ten were tagged Drama, eight Animated, four Faith and three Horror, and only two were tagged Music Video. If that ratio holds to November 20, music videos will compete for 10 slots against a far smaller field than short films. That is a count of one day's page, not a prediction, but it is the clearest edge in the contest. A Christmas track built with Suno, sung or voiced through ElevenLabs, and cut to Runway, Kling or Hailuo footage is a realistic two-week project.

The broadcast: what a finalist actually gets

The ceremony is multicast live on December 12 from the Afrotainers Theater in Orlando, Florida. It airs on AFRO TV, channel 1623 on Comcast Xfinity, streams nationwide on NOW TV, and runs on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. The live show starts at 7:00 PM EST, finalist films screen in two blocks with a filmmaker Q&A between them, scoring closes at 8:00 PM, and the awards begin at 8:15 PM. Earlier that day, from 2:00 to 5:00 PM, Cue runs live demos from AI filmmaking tool partners, with the lineup still to be announced.

For most AI filmmakers, the useful part is the credit. A US cable broadcast is uncommon on an AI filmmaker's reel, and a finalist slot gives you a dated, checkable screening to cite when you pitch brands or apply to festivals in 2027.

Cue plans this as a series. The site lists a Valentine's Day edition for February 14, 2027, an Easter edition with no date yet, a Mother's Day edition in May 2027, and a Halloween edition for October 31, 2027. A filmmaker who places in December has a reason to come back in February.

What happened to the Curious Refuge holiday contest

Curious Refuge and Epidemic Sound ran the first AI Holiday Film Competition in 2023, with a December 6 deadline and more than $7,500 in prizes, then billed as the largest prize pool yet for fully AI-generated films. Per the archived results page on curiousrefuge.com, first place and $5,000 went to Dragged Holidays by Rafael Arinelli, Beto Padreca and Paula Fernandes. Second place and $1,500 went to Mistletoes by Kurt Knight, third place and $1,000 to Phantom Christmas by Misha Penievskyi, and a joke "Santa's Favorite" award to Santa's Break by Antonio Carlos Moraes.

On October 19, 2026, Curious Refuge's contests page listed its 2026 AI Horror Film Competition (closed October 9) and the 2023 holiday contest as complete, with no 2026 holiday edition. We are not listing a 2026 deadline until Curious Refuge publishes one. If it does follow the 2023 format, three of that year's rules are worth building toward now: AI had to generate every shot, all music and sound effects had to come from Epidemic Sound, and films could not run longer than three minutes. The 2023 rules also asked only for holiday motifs such as snow or presents, citing Die Hard as an example of a holiday film. Subscribe below and we will email you the day it opens.

Open-theme contests that will take a Christmas short

A Christmas film does not need a Christmas contest. These open contests in our directory close between late November and the end of December and have no rule against a holiday story. Check each one's own page before you submit.

Cine Prague AI Film Festival closes November 28. It accepts AI and traditional shorts up to five minutes, screens finalists at Kino Edison, and awards a $1,000 Grand Prix on December 1.

Artefact AI Film Festival in Paris closes December 2. Its theme this year is (Dis)Connection, which suits the lonely-at-Christmas story better than most themes would. Films can run up to 314 seconds, each person may submit one film, and generative AI must be used in pre-production, production and post-production. The grand prize is €10,000 plus a 30-second cut of the winning film shown in every mk2 cinema for a week, with three further €1,000 awards.

The AKOOL AI Film Challenge closes December 20, with a $50,000 grand prize, $25,000 for second, $15,000 for third and ten $2,500 finalist awards. AKOOL must be meaningfully used in the finished film, though other tools are allowed, and you publish the film tagging @AKOOL with #AKOOLFilmChallenge before you submit.

The MetaMorph x TapNow Winter Activation closes December 30. It is free, pays £500 and 20,000 TapNow credits to the winner, and announces results on January 15, 2027, but at least 50% of the film must be generated in TapNow on a public canvas. For a Christmas music video, the Global AI Music Video Awards take entries on Festhome until January 1, 2027, with a $1,000 prize pool.

One holiday film, several deadlines: lengths that fit

Runtime limits decide where one film can go. Cue needs at least 2:00 and at most 6:00. Cine Prague caps films at 5:00, Artefact at 5:14, and the 2023 Curious Refuge rules capped films at 3:00. A cut between 2:00 and 3:00 fits all of them. A cut between 3:00 and 5:00 fits Cue, Cine Prague and Artefact but would miss a Curious Refuge edition run on the old rules.

Tool rules are the second filter. Cue, Cine Prague and Artefact name no required platform, so a film built with Midjourney stills, Runway or Luma for motion, Sora or Veo for hero shots and ElevenLabs for dialogue can go to all three. AKOOL and TapNow each require their own platform, so treat them as separate builds rather than a resubmission.

Sound is the third. Cue gives a Best Sound award judged on score, foley, dialogue and the final mix, while past Curious Refuge holiday rules required Epidemic Sound for all audio. If you want one soundtrack to work for both, licensed Epidemic Sound music is the safer choice, and you should check Cue's submission terms on music rights before you upload.

What audiences punished in AI Christmas ads

Coca-Cola's AI remake of its "Holidays Are Coming" ad in November 2024 is the clearest warning for anyone making an AI Christmas film. Adweek reported that early testing scored the ad well, then sentiment turned once viewers noticed what was missing. Campaign Asia reported complaints about distorted figures and truck wheels and the absence of Santa. The lesson for Cue, where viewers control half the final score, is concrete. Warping hands and shifting faces read as cold, and a festive spot with no people at its center reads as empty. Lock your characters with reference images before you generate motion, and give viewers at least one face they can follow from first shot to last.

Start with the November 20 Cue deadline and work back from it. Approved entries go live on the site once review and encoding finish, and public ratings, likes and views feed the December 1 selection, so a film entered in late October has weeks more exposure than one uploaded on deadline night.