AI Film Festivals in Toronto 2026-2027: Five Open Calls and Seven Screening Nights

Veritas AI Film Festival closes November 30 and shows 16 shorts at the Carlton Cinema on February 20, 2027. AI Slop in Markham closes December 16 for a January 23 show. PROMPT Festival in Scarborough runs rolling deadlines to April 16, 2027, and the AI Toronto Genre Awards runs them to May 22, 2027. None of the five pays a cash prize. We read every FilmFreeway listing below on October 28.

Seven Toronto AI screening nights between November and June

Toronto has more separate AI film events on the calendar than any other Canadian city in our directory. Counting the two festivals that have closed entries but still screen this fall, there are seven nights in seven months:

November 8, 2026: AI Toronto Shorts, Easy Life Studio, 163 Sterling Road (entries closed). November 13, 2026: AI Toronto Film Awards, Main Hall Space for Events, 1533 The Queensway. December 5, 2026: GenTO, Innis Town Hall Theatre, University of Toronto (entries closed). January 23, 2027: AI Slop Season 2, Rumiversal Studio, 2800 John Street, Markham. February 20, 2027: Veritas AI Film Festival, Imagine Cinemas Carlton Cinema, 20 Carlton Street. May 16, 2027: PROMPT Festival, Black Box, 1085 Bellamy Road North, Scarborough. June 5, 2027: AI Toronto Genre Awards, The Morpheus, 49 Elm Street.

Almost all of these are one-night events run by small teams on FilmFreeway, not arms of an established festival. That cuts both ways. Selection pools are smaller than at Runway's AI Film Festival or the Chroma Awards, so a good short has a real chance of getting on screen. The flip side is that prizes are laurels, trophies and audience votes. If you need cash, Toronto is a place to get a film seen in a room, and you should look to the free global contests for money.

AI Toronto Film Awards: final deadline October 29, 2026

This is the most urgent call on the page. The final deadline is October 29, notifications go out November 5, and the screening is Friday, November 13, 2026 at Main Hall Space for Events, 1533 The Queensway in Etobicoke. Doors open at 4:00 PM. Selected films screen, directors who can attend do a Q&A, and the audience votes on one award.

The listing asks one thing about AI: it needs "a real, traceable part" somewhere in the writing, images, voice, score or edit, and you have to say exactly where in the submission notes. Beyond that the rules are open. Runtime is 40 minutes or under, the longest cap of any Toronto AI call. Any genre counts, fiction or documentary, as long as the film was made on or after January 1, 2024. Files must be MP4 or MOV at 1080p or higher, in English or subtitled in English. No premiere is required, and each film is a separate paid entry.

There are eight awards: Best AI Film as the grand prize, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, The Cut for editing, Best Sound Design, Best AI Visual Craft and Audience Choice. No cash is listed. FilmFreeway did not show fees to a signed-out visitor, so check the checkout page before you commit.

Veritas AI Film Festival: deadline November 30, 2026

Veritas calls itself Canada's first film festival dedicated to AI filmmaking, and it is the tightest program in the city. It screens 16 short films in a single two-hour block at Imagine Cinemas Carlton Cinema, 20 Carlton Street, on February 20, 2027. The regular deadline is November 30, 2026, and notifications go out December 31. Festival director Aharon Jinji runs it from a Hamilton office.

The rules are three lines long. Films have to be made by AI, they must be under 7 minutes, and all genres are accepted. That 7-minute cap is the strictest in Toronto, so trailers, proof-of-concept scenes and single-idea shorts fit best. There is one category, AI Short Film, and five awards: Best Short, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Sound and The Veritas Award.

With 16 slots, Veritas is selective by design. When we added it to the directory the fee was $9, but FilmFreeway hid fees from signed-out visitors on October 28, so confirm it before paying. A film cut for Veritas also fits the AI Toronto Film Awards and PROMPT, which take shorter films without complaint.

AI Slop Film Festival: late deadline November 21, final December 16

AI Slop is the opposite of Veritas. It welcomes polished professional AI films alongside meme edits, deliberately chaotic experiments and what the organizers call "beautiful failures". Season 2 screens on January 23, 2027 at Rumiversal Studio, 2800 John Street in Markham, about 30 kilometres north of downtown. The festival lists its contact city as Toronto.

The remaining deadlines are a late deadline on November 21 and the "Final Curtain" on December 16, with notifications on December 23. Films must be completed in 2023 or later, there is no runtime limit, and features are accepted. You have to describe briefly how AI was used, hold the rights to the AI-generated elements, and subtitle non-English films in English.

Nine awards are on the slate. Best AI Film, Best Generative Short, Best Human x Machine Collaboration, Best AI Animation and the Future Prompt Award reward craft. Slop of the Year, Best Meme Cinema and the Visual Glitch Award reward the opposite. The Audience Signal Award is voted by the room. Submission categories go wider still, with entries for music video, VFX, action, story, script, web and new media, and microfilm. If you made something with Kling, Hailuo or Higgsfield that was too strange for a serious festival, this is the one festival in Canada built for it.

PROMPT Festival: ten rolling deadlines to April 16, 2027

PROMPT held its first edition on July 26, 2026 at Black Box, 1085 Bellamy Road North in Scarborough. The 2027 festival is on May 16, 2027 at the same venue. Instead of one deadline it runs ten, each with a cinema name. The ones still ahead are The Booth on November 12, Reel Change on December 11, Late Show on January 21, Closing Reel on February 19, House Lights on March 18 and Last Frame on April 16, 2027. Notifications go out May 4.

PROMPT has the loosest AI rule in Toronto. If AI was used anywhere in the creative pipeline, including only for the poster, concept art, a voice or visual enhancement, the project qualifies. Previously released work is accepted. Shorts, experimental work, music videos and hybrid projects are all welcome.

There are 15 award categories. The signature one, Best Prompt, is the festival grand prize and favours films made from a single prompt or as close to it as possible, with minimal manual intervention. If you want Best Prompt, explain your workflow in the submission. Heavily edited or traditionally shot films stay eligible for the other 14 categories, from Best AI Cinematography and Best AI Worldbuilding to Best AI Character Creation and an Audience Choice award. Selected filmmakers get a screening, laurels and networking at the event. Winners get laurels, a place in the winners program and featured placement in festival communications. When we listed PROMPT the fee was $15 per submission, or $10 with FilmFreeway Gold.

AI Toronto Genre Awards: rolling deadlines to May 22, 2027

The newest Toronto call opened September 9 and screens on the evening of June 5, 2027 at The Morpheus, 49 Elm Street, downtown. It takes only genre work: sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, horror, dark comedy, supernatural and adjacent forms. Short films up to 30 minutes qualify if AI was used anywhere in production, from image and video generation to sound, voice, editing or the screenplay.

The deadlines have radio names. Night Frequency is November 7, Deep Channel December 4, Static Hour January 6, Midnight Broadcast February 2, Fading Frequency March 2, Last Transmission March 29, Signal Decay April 25 and Final Static May 22, 2027. Notifications go out May 28.

Two signature prizes make this festival unusual. The AI Neon Nightmare Award goes to the best 1980s horror look: VHS grain, neon and synth, with mood valued over gore. The listing points out the venue is on Elm Street. The AI Neon Frontier Award goes to the best 1980s sci-fi look, with chrome, CRT glow and neon grids. Five standard awards follow: Best AI Genre Short, Best AI Director, Best AI Visual Effects, Best AI Sound and Score, and Audience Choice. If you have been building a retro horror short in Midjourney and Runway, no other festival in our directory has a category this specific for it.

Two Toronto festivals that have closed but still screen

AI Toronto Shorts holds its first night on November 8, 2026 at Easy Life Studio, 163 Sterling Road, with doors at 7:00 PM. Entries closed October 14. Festival director Oskar Pilarski's program runs curated screenings, filmmaker Q&As, a panel and an awards ceremony decided by a jury plus live audience voting. Its eight categories include Best AI Vertical, for vertical-format films. It is worth attending if you plan to enter next year.

GenTO: Toronto AI Film Festival, presented by Magnific, screens on December 5, 2026 at Innis Town Hall Theatre at the University of Toronto. Entries closed in October. GenTO is the only Toronto AI festival that names a tangible prize: Best AI Short Film winners get one year, six months or two months of Magnific Premium Plus for first, second and third place. It also has a Best Canadian Film award and a Best AI Commercial or Advertisement award. Expect a 2027 call; we will add it when it opens.

Cinema Shift, which screened Canada's first curated AI narrative program at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema on June 5, 2026, has not announced a second edition.

How to plan a Toronto AI festival run

One 6-minute short can enter four of the five open calls. It fits Veritas's 7-minute cap, the 30-minute caps at PROMPT and the Genre Awards, AI Slop's open runtime and the 40-minute cap at the AI Toronto Film Awards. Only the Genre Awards limits subject matter.

Rough order for a film finished now: the AI Toronto Film Awards before October 29 if it is ready, then Veritas before November 30, then AI Slop before December 16. Enter PROMPT at whichever rolling deadline you hit first. If the film is horror or sci-fi, add the Genre Awards. Check each festival's premiere rules before entering several at once. The AI Toronto Film Awards and PROMPT both say on their listings that previously released work is fine.

For more stops in Canada, Montréal's AI CINEMA festival closes February 5, 2027 and the AI Cinema Festival in Québec City closes January 24, 2027. Our Canada page covers both.