PixLight 2026: How to Enter PixVerse's $300,000 AI Film Contest (Deadline Now Oct 31)

You can enter a finished 3 to 20 minute pilot made mainly in PixVerse Canvas, or a 45 to 90 minute feature screenplay with a short video pitch. Entry is free, open worldwide, and teams are welcome.

That makes PixLight the largest free AI film prize still open this fall. The Higgsfield Global Film Festival ($1,000,000, closed September 14) required a paid Higgsfield subscription, and the AKOOL Creator Clash ($300,000 in creator rewards) closed September 15. Everything below comes from the official PixLight page, PixVerse's launch post and the August 7 press release, all checked on September 28, 2026.

The $300,000 Prize Breakdown

PixVerse splits the pool across 33 awards:

PixLight Grand Prize: $100,000 (one winner). PixLight Gold Award: $50,000 (one winner). PixLight Silver Award: $20,000 (one winner). Pilot Track Spotlight Awards: $5,000 each, twenty winners, $100,000 in total. Script Track Spotlight Awards: $3,000 each, ten winners, $30,000 in total.

Add those up and you get exactly $300,000. The shape matters more than the headline. Over half the money, $170,000, sits in the top three awards, but the other $130,000 goes to thirty spotlight winners. The Pilot Track has twenty spotlight slots against the Script Track's ten, so a finished film has twice as many mid-tier chances as a screenplay. The public page does not say which track the Grand, Gold and Silver awards are drawn from, so assume both tracks can win them until the full guidelines say otherwise.

Cash is only part of it. The contest page describes two next steps for standout entrants: PixLab, an invite-only lab with guidance and production support, and PixVerse Originals, where selected projects move into official development, production and global release with PixVerse backing. PixVerse's launch post frames this as "the possibility of development conversations" around production, adaptation or IP, so treat it as an opportunity, not a guaranteed deal.

Pilot Track: What to Submit

The Pilot Track asks for a complete AI short or pilot episode of 3 to 20 minutes. The contest page gives one rule: "tell a story that makes people want episode two." The jury looks for a clear world, a memorable lead, cinematic pacing, and, in PixVerse's words, "a Canvas workflow worth cloning."

That last phrase is the one entrants tend to miss. PixVerse Canvas must be your primary creative platform. Canvas launched in June 2026 as a node-based workspace where the brief, script, storyboard, references, generation tasks and final video sit on one editable board, and it runs PixVerse's own models alongside others such as Seedance 2.0. PixVerse wants to see that graph, because the contest doubles as a showcase for the product. Build the film in Canvas from the start, keep the project tidy, and expect the workflow to be part of what gets judged.

You are not locked into pure generation. The launch post says pilots may "freely combine AI-generated content with live-action footage, traditional VFX, and other production techniques." That is looser than Vigloo's short drama festival, which bans live action, or Higgsfield's festival, which banned any AI tool outside its own platform. If you already shoot practical plates or composite in After Effects or DaVinci Resolve, you can keep doing that, as long as Canvas stays the main creative engine.

Script Track: What to Submit

The Script Track is for a complete feature screenplay of 45 to 90 minutes plus a short video pitch. The page's rule is "make us see the movie before it exists." The jury wants an original world, real emotional stakes and a story ready to go into production.

The video pitch is where AI earns its place. A screenplay alone reads like any other screenplay competition; a pitch that shows the lead character, the world's look and one key scene rendered in PixVerse tells the jury you can deliver the film. Keep the pitch short and specific: logline, the world in three or four shots, the lead in motion, and the tone of the ending. The ten Script Track spotlight awards pay $3,000 each, and a strong screenplay is also the most natural fit for PixVerse Originals development.

The Three Genre Directions

Both tracks run across three genre lanes, which PixVerse calls directions:

Under the Skin covers drama, comedy, coming-of-age and social realism. Worlds Beyond covers sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural and mythology. Edge of Seat covers horror, thriller, mystery, crime, action and adventure.

Most AI films gravitate to Worlds Beyond, because generated spectacle is what current models do best. That likely makes it the most crowded lane. Under the Skin is the harder brief for AI, since it lives on faces, dialogue and small performances, but the judging criteria reward exactly that. If you can hold a consistent lead character through twelve minutes of emotional scenes, you stand out. Edge of Seat suits anyone already building a horror short for the Curious Refuge AI Horror Film Competition, which closes October 9 with $12,000 in cash prizes. A three-minute horror film for Curious Refuge can become the cold open of a longer PixLight pilot, provided the pilot is built in Canvas.

How the Jury Judges

PixVerse says entries go to an international panel of directors, visual effects leaders and industry voices. The official page shows the jury, but the names are not in its text, so check there before you finalize your cut.

The criteria are clearer than the names. PixVerse's launch post says the jury weighs "emotional resonance and a distinctly human perspective as heavily as visual and technical craft," and asks for "a beginning, middle, and end, characters an audience can care about, and a distinct creative voice." In practice that rules out the reel of beautiful shots with no story, which is still the most common AI festival entry. A pilot needs a lead with a want, a problem that gets worse, and a last scene that opens the next episode.

Rights, Credits and the Fine Print

You keep your IP. The launch post states that "creators retain full ownership of their stories, characters, worlds, and screenplays." That is worth checking against the full guidelines, which sit behind a PixVerse login at app.pixverse.ai/challenge/pixlight/guidelines, especially the licence PixVerse takes to promote winning entries.

Two credit offers lower the cost of making a pilot. Eligible registrants can claim a Starter Pack of PixVerse credits through the form linked from the contest page. And a valid Pilot Track entry earns "100% eligible credits back, up to 100,000," so the credits you spend building the film in Canvas can be refunded once you submit. Read the eligibility terms before you rely on it for budgeting.

How PixLight Compares to Other Open AI Contests

PixLight is the richest open contest for longer-form AI work. Here is how it sits next to the other episodic and genre contests in our directory:

The 2026 Vigloo Short Drama Festival pays $20,000 in total, is free, and closes October 11 at 23:59 KST. It wants vertical 9:16 dramas of three minutes or less, made entirely with generative AI.

The Gossip Goblin x Showrunner Competition pays $20,000 and closes December 15. Films run 2 to 20 minutes and must be made in Showrunner Studio.

Slamdance's DIG category, which encourages AI films, closes October 6 and offers a $25,000 AGBO Fellowship plus a Utopia distribution deal, with tiered entry fees.

The formats conflict, so one file will not fit all four. A single project can still feed several of them: a vertical three-minute cut for Vigloo and a longer horizontal pilot for PixLight, built from the same series bible.

A Five-Week Plan to October 31

Week one (by October 5): pick your track and genre direction, and write a one-page series bible with logline, lead character, world rules and five episode hooks. Claim the Starter Pack credits.

Week two (by October 12): lock the script for an 8 to 12 minute pilot. That runtime sits well inside the 3 to 20 minute window and is realistic for a solo creator. Build the storyboard and character references as nodes in Canvas.

Weeks three and four (by October 26): generate, cut and grade. Lock character consistency before anything else; the jury is scoring the lead. Add sound and music, and composite any live-action plates.

Week five: final mix, subtitles if your dialogue is not in English, and submit through app.pixverse.ai/challenge/pixlight/submit a few days early. Screenplay entrants follow the same calendar with the script locked by October 19 and the pitch video in the last ten days.

Deadlines move, and this one already has. We list PixLight and every other open AI film contest in the live directory, with deadlines checked against official pages. Subscribe below and we will email you when a new AI film contest opens or a deadline gets close.