FESTIVA_AI
// Field Manual

AI Film Festival Guide: How the Festiva AI World Tour Works

Festiva AI is the world's first global AI film festival — a touring, community-driven circuit for synthetic cinema. Instead of one venue in one city, the festival moves week by week across eleven cities on four continents, from a Berlin launch to a Berlin finale. Every stop screens films made with generative AI tools — text-to-video models, AI score generators, synthetic voices — and every stop sends its winning film forward to the world final.

The festival is open to anyone. Filmmakers submit a finished work of ten to twenty minutes through the submission page, priced at one euro per minute of runtime. Submissions are stored securely, reviewed by the festival team, and then screened at the tour stop they select. Accepted genres span narrative, documentary, animation, experimental work, and music videos.

What makes the format unusual is its four-way voting system. Each film's final score combines 30% audience votes cast in the theater, 30% judge votes from invited critics and festival professionals, and 40% industry votes from producers, distributors, and studios — with an additional AI agent score reported alongside the human result. The winning film of each city advances, and after twelve weeks the world winner is crowned where the tour began, in Berlin.

Festiva AI was founded by Raphael Bar-Adam Gross and Kristoff Keel, who built the platform, its submission pipeline, and its touring schedule as one product. The festival's first season is aimed primarily at audiences across Europe and countries adjacent to Germany, with the full world tour following. Use the guide below to see where the circuit goes next, or head to the submission page to enter a film.

The tour, city by city

  • WK 01Berlin · GermanyWhere it begins. The premiere of synthetic cinema: the festival's opening week screens the first global slate of AI-native films and sets the format every later stop follows.
  • WK 02Tokyo · JapanCyberpunk meets celluloid in Shibuya. Tokyo's stop celebrates anime-influenced generative work and Japan's animation-forward AI filmmaking scene.
  • WK 03New York · USAThe industry descends on Manhattan. Producers, distributors, and studios weigh in with the heaviest industry voting bloc of the tour.
  • WK 04Los Angeles · USAHollywood meets the algorithm. Studio technology teams and AI toolmakers screen work made with the latest text-to-video models.
  • WK 05São Paulo · BrazilLatin America's creative pulse. A vibrant week of experimental and music-video submissions from across South America.
  • WK 06Singapore · SingaporeThe tech gateway of Southeast Asia. A hub stop where regional AI studios and investors preview the circuit's rising films.
  • WK 07Tel Aviv · IsraelThe innovation nation hosts the future. Startup-era energy meets documentary and narrative AI filmmaking.
  • WK 08Moscow · RussiaAvant-garde roots run deep. The tour's most experimental week, honoring a century of montage tradition now rebuilt with generative tools.
  • WK 09Rome · ItalyLa dolce vita, reimagined by machines. Italian neorealism and Mediterranean visual style meet synthetic cinematography.
  • WK 10Paris · FranceThe auteur tradition meets generative art. Paris hosts the tour's critics' week, where judges carry extra weight.
  • WK 11Miami · USAArt deco and AI on the sand. The final qualifying week before the finale, with a music-video-heavy lineup.
  • WK 12Berlin · GermanyThe world winner crowned. Back where it began: all city winners screen again and the global audience, judges, and industry vote for the world's best AI film.

Quick answers

Who can submit a film?
Any filmmaker working with AI tools. Films must run between ten and twenty minutes, and each submission is priced at one euro per minute.
How are winners decided?
30% audience vote, 30% judges, and 40% industry — combined into one score, with the AI agent score published alongside it.
Where does the tour start?
Berlin launches week one and hosts the world finale in week twelve, after stops in Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, São Paulo, Singapore, Tel Aviv, Moscow, Rome, Paris, and Miami.