Season 1 · Los Angeles, California
AI Los Angeles
IFF
Once a year the desert wind comes down over the hills and turns this city strange for a night or two. This is a one-room short film festival for films made the same way: with something in them nobody fully controlled.
Total control makes a competent film.
We want the ones that caught a gust.
Raymond Chandler wrote that when the Santa Ana blows, “meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks.” The wind still does that. It comes down out of the desert every fall, hot and dry against a coastline built for damp marine air, and for a night or two nobody in this city is quite themselves.
AI Los Angeles IFF takes its temperament from that weather. The festival is not interested in artificial intelligence as a clean, controllable tool. We want the films where something got into the process the filmmaker didn’t fully plan for: a generated image that suggested a different scene, a voice that came out wrong in a way that was better, a cut that only made sense once the wind had already turned the film into something else.
We take short films of any genre, from any country, where artificial intelligence had a real, describable hand somewhere in the making, whether that is the writing, the images, the voice, the score, or the cut. This is a one-night festival, not a running series: one screening, one room, once a year, timed to the season when the wind actually shows up.
On October 18, 2026, we’re screening the selected films: a program of shorts, a Q&A with the directors who can be in the room, and time afterward to talk with the other filmmakers and the audience. Venue details are still being finalized and will go up here as soon as they're locked.
Eight prizes, read like a wind scale.
- Best AI Short
Grand prize. Best film in the program, no matter what else it’s entered under.
- Best Director
For control kept over a shoot where a lot could have blown sideways.
- Best Documentary
Best nonfiction short.
- Best Animation
Best animated short, any technique.
- Best Visual Work
Best cinematography, image generation, or visual effects.
- Best Sound & Score
Best use of sound and music in the mix.
- Best Editing
Best cut. The film that knew when to change direction.
- Audience Choice
Voted by whoever’s in the room on October 18.
Submission Advisory, effective through Oct 2, 2026
The following conditions apply to all entries. Read in full before submitting.
- Length. 30 minutes or under.
- Genre. Open to all genres and formats, fiction and nonfiction alike.
- Completion date. Completed on or after January 1, 2024.
- AI involvement. Artificial intelligence must have played a real, traceable part somewhere in the film, whether in the script, the images, the voice, the score, or the edit. Explain where in the submission notes. A film that only used AI to make a poster or a trailer does not qualify.
- Language. English, or subtitled in English if the dialogue is not.
- Premiere status. No premiere requirement. Films already screened, streamed, or awarded elsewhere remain eligible.
- Multiple entries. Submit as many films as you have. Each is entered and paid for separately.
- Rights. You must hold the rights to enter the film and let us screen it publicly on the date above.
- Format. Digital file, MP4 or MOV, minimum 1080p.
- Discretion. The programming team may decline any submission without explanation, and may adjust the running order for time and pacing.
The room isn’t named yet.
The date already holds.
We're not ready to say where this lands. When the venue is confirmed, it'll be here, with a map and a door time. Until then: the date is fixed, and so is the lineup below.
Submissions run through FilmFreeway: filmfreeway.com/AILosAngelesIFF. Questions: mail@ailaiff.com.