AI Film Festivals in India 2026: Six Open Calls from Jaipur to Kochi

The International AI Film Festival of Kerala opens October 15 and closes at the end of November, with screenings in Kochi on January 22 to 24, 2027. In Jaipur, two programs from the same festival family both close December 5 and both screen during the Jaipur International Film Festival week of January 8 to 12, 2027: the JIFF World AI Cinema Competition and the World AI Cinema & Creativity Festival (WAICF). The AI Film & Ads Awards India closes December 31, and the Bengaluru International Short Film Festival reopens its AI section, Machine Made Movies, on February 1, 2027. All six accept entries from outside India. The biggest Indian AI film event of the season, the AI Film Festival inside IFFI Goa, has already closed submissions and runs November 20 to 28. Dates and fees below were checked against each festival's official site or submission page on October 4, 2026.

The short answer, festival by festival

IASFF closes November 10 (late tier October 31). It is online, screens selections on YouTube from December 8 to 15, and charges $10 to $30 depending on the tier. Films can run up to 30 minutes, in any language.

AIFFK Kerala opens October 15 and closes November 30. Films must run at least two minutes. Screenings are in Kochi, January 22 to 24, 2027.

JIFF World AI Cinema Competition closes December 5 and screens in Jaipur, January 8 to 12, 2027. It has ten AI categories, including a student film award and a screenplay award.

WAICF India closes December 5 (late tier October 15) and runs the same week in Jaipur. It advertises cash prizes of up to ₹25,00,000, conditional on sponsorship.

AI Film & Ads Awards India closes December 31 and takes both narrative films and AI ads, from a few seconds up to 30 minutes.

BISFF Machine Made Movies opens February 1, 2027 and closes April 30, 2027, ahead of the festival in Bengaluru in August 2027.

IASFF: the cheapest early entry, with a section reserved for Indian filmmakers

The International AI Short Film Festival is the closest deadline on this list and the cheapest one if you move now. Its Festhome listing shows four fee tiers: $10 for the early tier (now passed), $15 until October 10, $20 until October 31 and $30 until the extended deadline of November 10. Notification goes out November 25, and selected films screen on the festival's YouTube channel from December 8 to 15.

The festival runs three sections. The International Competition takes AI narrative and experimental shorts from anywhere. The National Competition is limited to filmmakers based in India and the Indian diaspora, which makes it one of the few AI awards where Indian creators are not competing against well-funded studios in Los Angeles and Seoul. The Global Panorama is a non-competitive showcase. Awards are Best of the Fest, Most Innovative Prompt (a workflow award) and Audience Choice.

Fiction, documentary, animation, experimental work and music videos are all accepted, up to 30 minutes. Every entry must include a "Statement of AI Labor" that lists the tools you used and breaks down which parts were human curation and which were AI generation. If you cut in Premiere, generated shots in Kling or Runway and wrote the score in Suno, say so plainly. A specific breakdown tells a jury more than a list of tool names.

AIFFK Kerala: a festival built around craft categories

The International AI Film Festival of Kerala, run by the School of Storytelling, opens submissions on October 15 for its January 22 to 24, 2027 edition in Kochi. Its predecessor, the Kerala International AI Film Festival, held its 2026 edition in Thiruvananthapuram from September 18 to 20 and charged no entry fee. The 2027 page does not list a fee yet, so check it on opening day.

The official site lists the closing date as "31 Nov 2026", a date that does not exist. Treat November 30 as the real deadline and submit before then. Judging runs from December into January.

The rules are short. Films must run at least two minutes and must show innovative use of AI in the conception, design or production of the work. The award list is where Kerala differs from most AI festivals: alongside Best AI Film and Best Experimental Film, it gives separate awards for Best Narration, Best Cinematography and Sound, Music and Design. If your film's strength is a voice performance built in ElevenLabs or a score that carries the story, Kerala is one of the few places that rewards it on its own.

JIFF World AI Cinema Competition: ten categories inside an established festival

The Jaipur International Film Festival is in its 19th edition, and its World AI Cinema Competition puts AI work inside a traditional festival rather than in a separate AI-only event. The festival runs January 8 to 12, 2027 in Jaipur.

The competition has ten categories: AI Short Film, AI Feature Film, AI Documentary, AI Animation Film, AI Experimental Film, AI Music Video, AI Student Film, AI-Assisted Film (Human + AI), AI Screenplay Award and AI Innovation Award. Shorts (under 45 minutes) must have been produced between January 2024 and December 2026, and features (over 45 minutes) between January 2025 and December 2026. Films still in post-production are accepted. JIFF names Runway, Sora, Kling, Veo, Midjourney, Luma, Pika, Higgsfield and ComfyUI among the accepted tools, and says all AI tools are allowed.

JIFF publishes nomination lists on November 5, December 5 and December 21. The final submission deadline in our listing is December 5; the December 21 date is the final nomination list, not a later entry date. Entering before November 5 gets your film considered for the first list.

On money, read the wording closely. The JIFF entry form says total festival prize money runs "up to 5000000 (80000$)", that is ₹50,00,000, and that the amount depends on government support. That figure covers the whole festival, not only the AI section. Our earlier check of the entry form put AI short fees at $30 to $60 and AI feature fees at $100 to $150, depending on tier.

WAICF India: the ₹25 lakh headline and what sits behind it

The World AI Cinema & Creativity Festival is run by Film Dais, part of the same Jaipur ecosystem as JIFF and the New Delhi Film Festival. It runs January 8 to 12, 2027 in Jaipur. WAICF and the JIFF AI competition are separate programs with separate entry forms and separate fees. One entry does not cover both.

WAICF's fees are listed in rupees and dollars. Shorts and documentaries up to 45 minutes cost ₹2,500 or $45 until October 15, then ₹3,000 or $55 until December 5. Features from 46 to 180 minutes cost ₹6,000 or $80 until October 15, then ₹8,000 or $100. Indian filmmakers paying in rupees pay noticeably less than the dollar price at current exchange rates.

The Film Dais page lists a cash prize of up to ₹25,00,000, "depending on sponsorship support and funding availability," with three to five winners per category. Treat that as a ceiling, not a guarantee. Beyond its eight film categories (fiction, documentary, animation, experimental, music video and others), WAICF runs separate awards for screenplay, character creation, visual effects and design, so a strong AI character sheet or VFX breakdown can compete on its own.

AI Film & Ads Awards India: one competition for films and AI ads

The AI Film & Ads Awards India, run by KM Universe, closes December 31 and takes films from a few seconds up to 30 minutes. Its categories are Best Short Hybrid (up to 5 minutes), Best Feature Hybrid (6 to 30 minutes), Best Impact and Best Conceptual (both up to 5 minutes), and every category is eligible for the top prize, the Crystal Brain Award.

The useful part for working creators is that spec ads and commercial work compete alongside narrative shorts. If you have built AI product films or brand spots in Veo, Kling or Higgsfield for clients, this is one of the few Indian awards where that portfolio counts. Our listing records a 50% discount code, AIFILMAWARDSMUMBAI, on its FilmFreeway page; confirm it still works at checkout before you rely on it.

BISFF Machine Made Movies: a big festival's AI section, outside the Oscar track

The Bengaluru International Short Film Festival is India's only Oscar-accredited short film festival. In 2026, its 16th edition, it added an AI section called Machine Made Movies. According to AI Films Studio's write-up of the festival, BISFF 2026 received a record 3,340 submissions from more than 100 countries, and 118 of them were entered in Machine Made Movies.

One detail matters before you budget for it. The Oscar qualification covers BISFF's International, Indian and Animation competitions. Machine Made Movies runs as a separate strand outside that qualification framework, so winning the AI section does not make your film eligible for the Academy Awards.

The 17th edition opens submissions on February 1, 2027, with a regular deadline of February 28, a paid deadline of March 31 and a late deadline of April 30, 2027. Films must run 30 minutes or less including credits, entrants must be 18 or older, and English subtitles are required. If you are working in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam or any other Indian language, subtitle the cut before you submit.

IFFI Goa and the events you can attend this season

The AI Film Festival at the International Film Festival of India in Goa is the government-backed one, run by NFDC with WAVES Film Bazaar and LTIMindtree. Submissions for 2026 closed on August 31, and the festival runs during IFFI from November 20 to 28. Its first edition, at the 56th IFFI in November 2025, received 68 films from 18 countries and put 27 into competition, according to Storyboard18. The winners were Nagori by Guillaume Hurbault of France (Best AI Short Film, ₹3 lakh), The Cinema That Never Was by Mark Wachholz of Germany (Best Experimental Storytelling, ₹2 lakh) and Kyra by Meta Puppet of the US (Best AI Animation or Visual Design, ₹1 lakh). Two Indian films received jury special mentions: The Last Backup Final Part by Sreerithanya M. and Miracle on Kachua Beach by Shivanshu Nirupam. A 2027 call has not been announced yet.

Earlier this year, InVideo and Nvidia staged an AI Film Festival at the Qutub Minar complex in New Delhi on February 17, 2026, during the India AI Impact Summit, with ₹10,02,000 in prizes, per Curly Tales. In Mumbai, the India AI Film Awards (IAIFA), run by BombayHubforAi, held its first awards night on May 31, 2026, and Indywood's International AI Cinefest premiered in Kochi on March 25, 2026. None of these has opened a 2027 call yet; we will list them when they do.

One more option sits outside India but was built around it. The Tel Aviv AI Film Festival closes October 15 and screens at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque on November 10 as part of Tel Aviv AI Week, centred on a creative bridge between Israel and India with a delegation of Indian AI filmmakers as guests. Four of its five categories are free to enter.

A season plan for an Indian AI filmmaker

If you have one finished short, this is the order that makes sense.

Before October 10, enter IASFF at the $15 tier and pick the National Competition if you are India-based. Before October 15, enter the Tel Aviv AI Film Festival for free and decide whether WAICF is worth ₹2,500 now or ₹3,000 later.

On October 15, check the Kerala page for the fee and submit once your film runs at least two minutes. Before November 5, enter JIFF so your film is eligible for the first nomination list.

By December 5, finish your Jaipur entries, and by December 31, send your shortest cut or your best spec ad to the AI Film & Ads Awards. Then subtitle everything in English before BISFF opens on February 1.

For a short film, IASFF, JIFF and WAICF together cost $90 to $145 at current tiers, and Tel Aviv is free. If you have to choose, IASFF's National Competition gives the best odds for an India-based creator, and Kerala's craft awards suit films built around sound or narration. Check each contest card below for the live listing before you pay, because fees rise on each tier date.