The AI Films Festival will take place in February online and in New York.

Runway ML, the company behind text-to-image AI system Stable Diffusion, is hosting a festival of short films made using AI. Films with a runtime of between one and 10 minutes that either include AI-generated content or were pieced together with AI-powered editing techniques will qualify for the competition, which carries a $10K prize. (Fast Company)

To be held in February, online and in New York, the festival has started accepting submissions already. According to Runway cofounder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela, the timing is apt given the current surge of interest in all kinds of content generated using AI.

The AI tools now beginning to be available make it easy for even non-technical people to create content hitherto only the preserve of media and artistic professionals. Imagination is the only limiting factor.

“I think we’re heading to a future where a lot of the content and the entertainment and the media that you see online will be generated,” Valenzuela told Fast Company.

Entries will be evaluated by judges based on quality of composition, cohesion of narrative, originality, as well as the AI techniques used. There will be cash prizes for the top films and a $10,000 grand prize.

Competitors may create their films using Runways’ suite of AI tools, or any other. The latter would not be disadvantaged.

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