Runway Announces the Return of Its AI Film Festival, Applications Open

AI video startup Runway has announced the return of its AI Film Festival, now in its third year. The event, which will feature AI-generated films, will take place on June 5 in New York and June 12 in Los Angeles.

The AI Film Festival, similar to the one in Cannes, is an effort to celebrate artists who use emerging AI technologies in their short films. Started three years ago, the festival is a bid to open dialogue on the (inevitable) role of AI tools in the film community and engage with creators from all backgrounds to understand their perspectives. 

Submissions close on March 31. Apply here. 

The entries will be judged by a panel of industry experts, including Runway CEO Cristobal Valenzuela, NVIDIA’s Richard Kerris, and Tribeca Enterprises’ Jane Rosenthal. Other jurors include professionals from Lionsgate, Imax, The Gotham Film & Media Institute, and Bento Box Entertainment.

Meanwhile, the NYU Tisch School of the Arts is integrating Runway into its 2025 spring Masters in Virtual Production course.

In October, Runway introduced Act-One, a tool within Gen-3 Alpha for generating expressive character performances. Before that, the company partnered with Lionsgate, the studio behind John Wick, granting the studio exclusive access to Runway’s AI tools for content creation. 

This collaboration set a new standard in the entertainment industry and positioned Runway ahead of competitors like OpenAI’s Sora. In December last year, OpenAI launched its most-awaited video-generation model, Sora, which, according to the company, is a calculated step toward achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI).