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AI Slop Film Festival · Guide

How to win the AI Slop Film Festival.Glitchcore, meme cinema and one night in Toronto.

Season 2 entries close on 16 December 2026, and the cheaper tiers are ending now. The rules, the nine awards, what Season 1 rewarded and a plan to the deadline. Then take it from screenplay to storyboard to Seedance footage, all inside 熙熙.
Start writing for freeSee the scene
  • Final deadline 16 Dec 2026
  • Screening 23 Jan 2027
  • Any length
Voidborn · Episode 0

Independent guide. 熙熙 does not organise the AI Slop Film Festival and is not affiliated with AI Slop or Rumiversal Studio. Rules read on 1 October 2026. Official site

熙熙 now offers two tiers: start with free screenwriting tools to develop your script, then upgrade to the 年度会员 at ¥168 一年 to unlock AI-generated storyboards that bring your screenplay to visual life frame by frame.

Also available now: video generation of each shot, powered by Seedance, on the same 年度会员, with 3,000 张额度 一年.

The rules on one card

What Season 2 asks for.

The AI Slop Film Festival celebrates what the industry once called slop—digital maximalism, glitchcore aesthetics, and the uncanny valley—as a legitimate visual dialect. Submission guidelines are simple and welcoming, open to both polished cinematic work and intentionally chaotic experimental pieces.
Event
Saturday 23 January 2027, Rumiversal Studio, Toronto. Doors 18:00, screening 18:30
Final deadline
16 December 2026. Notifications on 23 December
Tiers left
2 October, then Late tiers on 27 October, 21 November and 16 December
Fees
Cheaper when you enter earlier. Amounts are on FilmFreeway, not on the site
AI rule
The project must meaningfully involve AI tools. Briefly describe how you used them
Length
No strict limit. Shorts and feature-length films are accepted
Eligibility
Completed in 2023 or later. You hold the rights to the work and its AI elements
Language and files
English subtitles for other languages. A high-quality digital screening file if selected

Source: aislopfestival.com, read on 1 October 2026. All submissions must be processed exclusively through the FilmFreeway platform. The festival's official website does not publicly disclose specific fee amounts for entry tiers, does not publish prize purse values for any award categories, and provides no information regarding jury panel members or their credentials.

Key dates

Four tiers left, and the price rises.

The festival operates on a ten-tier deadline structure, with each tier assigned terminology drawn from glitch art and digital artifact vocabulary. Earlier is cheaper, meaning the submission date functions simultaneously as both a pricing mechanism and a temporal cutoff point—filmmakers who enter during initial tiers pay reduced fees compared to those submitting closer to the final deadline.

  1. 2 Oct 2026

    Latent Surge

    The last Regular tier. After it, every entry falls in a Late tier.

  2. 27 Oct and 21 Nov 2026

    Vapor Layer and Diffusion Drift

    The first two Late tiers.

  3. 16 Dec 2026

    Final Render

    The last deadline for Season 2. No tier is listed after it.

  4. 23 Dec 2026

    Signal Lock

    Notifications go out. Season 2 selections are announced after this date.

  5. 23 Jan 2027

    Screening in Toronto

    Doors at 18:00, films from 18:30, at Rumiversal Studio.

Who decides

A jury and a room.

The festival does not disclose the identities of jurors serving on its evaluation panels, nor does it publish explicit judging criteria or scoring rubrics that explain how entries are assessed. What the festival does communicate transparently is the designation of which specific entity or committee holds decision-making authority for each individual award category.

  • The jury

    Category winners are selected by a jury. The criteria are not detailed, so read the award descriptions as the brief: each one says in a line what it wants.

  • The audience

    The Audience Signal Award is chosen by viewers during the screening. In a room built around memes and glitch, a film that gets a reaction in its first ten seconds has the advantage.

The awards

Nine awards. Six of them, taken apart.

The festival lists nine awards: Best AI Film, Best Generative Short, Best AI Animation, Best Meme Cinema, Best Human x Machine Collaboration, Slop of the Year, Visual Glitch Award, Audience Signal Award and Future Prompt Award. Here are six, with the angle we would take.

  • 01

    Best AI Film

    The most compelling overall AI-driven cinematic work.

    Season 1's winner, Legend, ran 19 minutes: a fading world, an aging guardian, a young man learning to follow in his mother's footsteps. A classic story, told with full conviction.

  • 02

    Best Generative Short

    Excellence in short-form AI storytelling.

    The Season 1 winner, +/- AURA, ran 4:56 on a single question: how much aura can one man gain or lose in one day? One question is enough for a short.

  • 03

    Best Meme Cinema

    Transforming internet humor into moving image art.

    ZABB SHOW, the Season 1 winner, is a late-night talk show fever dream. Take a format the internet already knows and break it from the inside.

  • 04

    Slop of the Year

    The most gloriously chaotic, meme-born, culturally unhinged creation.

    No Season 1 winner is listed for it, so the field is open. Chaos still needs a spine: the site pairs unstable visuals with precise structure and clear user flow.

  • 05

    Visual Glitch Award

    Bold aesthetic experimentation and digital distortion.

    The festival's own mood list reads: harsh neon, acid colours, chromatic aberration, compression artifacts. Make the glitch a decision: choose where it happens and what it reveals.

  • 06

    Best Human x Machine Collaboration

    When the balance between author and algorithm feels alive.

    TheRealReal won it in two minutes: a man performs authenticity until small glitches betray the construction. Show where the human stops and the model starts.

Season 1

What eleven films teach.

Season 1 premiered on 8 May 2026 at Rumiversal Studio, showcasing a curated program that included five category winners alongside six official selections, with individual work runtimes spanning from 1:28 to 19:00. The festival website provides a complete roster listing all eleven selected projects from this inaugural season.

  1. 01

    Length was not penalised. The two longest films, Legend at 19:00 and Mom's Wish at 18:30, won Best AI Film and Best AI Animation. A two minute film also won a category.

  2. 02

    One line carries the premise. Mom's Wish sends a strong-willed mother and her grown daughter on an absurd quest for the best cemetery plot in the city. Comedy and a clear stake travel.

  3. 03

    The glitch can be the idea. TheRealReal won Best Human x Machine Collaboration at two minutes, by making the construction visible. A flaw used on purpose is a style.

  4. 04

    One filmmaker, two films. James Alex had +/- AURA, a category winner, and Empathy Corridor, an official selection, in the same programme. The festival will screen more than one of your films.

  5. 05

    The room is small. Eleven films were programmed. A polished film is noticed more easily than at a festival with hundreds of selections.

The scene, shot by shot

Voidborn: man against machine, in six shots.

From Voidborn, episode 0, a 熙熙 team production made with Seedance: a swordsman faces a line of white automatons whose eyes ignite red. First the screenplay page, then each shot as a frame on the storyboard and as a finished image. A human against a machine is the idea behind the festival's Best Human x Machine Collaboration award.

Logline. Every seven years, the Rift tears open and consumes the collective dreams of the world entire. A swordsman bound by oath to protect a blind seer undertakes the perilous task of escorting her down through the Rift's descending levels, journeying toward the fulfillment of a solemn promise they once made to a girl they were forced to leave behind.

Screenplay · episode 0 · English subtitles

EXT. RUINS OF THE FIRST LEVEL - NIGHT

Crumbling stone towers rise against a violet sky. SIM, a swordsman cloaked in black, walks at the side of LADY MARIA, her eyes covered by a blindfold, her figure draped entirely in white.

SIM

Tell me, Maria... do you think Leia still believes we are alive?

MARIA

We made a promise... the two of us.

A line of white automatons rises from the ruins.

AUTOMATON

The Rift will wait for no one.

SIM

What are machines doing at this level?

One automaton steps forward. Its face is blank.

AUTOMATON

We must return to the surface.

Its eyes ignite red.

SIM

I am Sim, sworn guardian of Lady Maria... and I will now carry out your execution.

Steel meets steel. Lightning runs down the blade.

CUT TO:

  1. A swordsman in a black cloak and a blindfolded woman in white walk through ruins at night
    Storyboard frame of the wide shot, in grey
    01

    Wide · the pair

    Wide shot, a bald swordsman in a black cloak and a blindfolded red-haired woman in white walk through night ruins

  2. Medium two-shot of a bald swordsman and a blindfolded red-haired woman
    Storyboard frame of the two-shot, in grey
    02

    Two-shot · the promise

    Medium two-shot, the swordsman and the blindfolded seer side by side, violet night sky, broken towers

  3. Three white humanoid automatons stand in night ruins
    Storyboard frame of the automatons shot, in grey
    03

    Wide · the machines

    Wide low angle, three white humanoid automatons standing in the ruins, cold blue moonlight

  4. Close-up of a white automaton with a smooth blank face
    Storyboard frame of the blank face close-up, in grey
    04

    Close-up · the blank face

    Close-up on an automaton's smooth faceless head, black eye slots, cables at the neck, ruins behind

  5. A white automaton's eyes glow red
    Storyboard frame of the red eyes close-up, in grey
    05

    Close-up · the red eyes

    Same framing, the automaton's eyes ignite red, the swordsman's shoulder out of focus in the foreground

  6. A swordsman strikes with a katana wreathed in lightning and sparks
    Storyboard frame of the clash shot, in grey
    06

    Action · the clash

    Dynamic low angle, the swordsman strikes with his katana, lightning running along the blade, sparks, cape flying

Running at 13 minutes in length, Voidborn, episode 0 occupies a mid-range duration within its category. The film secured 1st Place Silver recognition and 2nd Place 熙熙 honors at the Mondial Chroma Awards, in addition to receiving an award at the Seoul International AI Film Festival. This particular festival imposes no length restrictions, and the Season 1 winning entries spanned a broad range from 2 to 19 minutes. Within the narrative structure, the player begins their journey at the ruins sequence, positioned approximately 7 minutes into the episode.

The script

A 4 minute film built on one glitch.

A duration of four minutes positions itself near the midpoint of Season 1's winning entries and provides sufficient space for a single narrative idea to establish itself and build momentum. In screenplay terms, this translates to roughly four pages of script and typically requires between 50 to 70 individual shots to execute effectively.

  1. 0:00 to 0:25

    The glitch

    Open on the thing that is wrong. In this room it is the hook.

  2. 0:25 to 1:25

    The format

    Give the glitch a frame: a talk show, a diary, a game, a trailer. Familiar form, strange content.

  3. 1:25 to 2:35

    The escalation

    Each beat pushes the same joke or fear a little further.

  4. 2:35 to 3:35

    The collapse

    The format breaks. This is where chaos pays off, if it was set up.

  5. 3:35 to 4:00

    The tag

    One last beat that recasts the opening. Short, odd, memorable.

Write the glitch directly into your screenplay: pinpoint the exact moment where reality slips, and articulate what that rupture reveals about your story. When glitches appear as deliberate directorial choices—timed, motivated, structured—they register as controlled chaos that serves the narrative. When they arrive without context or consistency, they read as unintentional rendering faults that distract rather than illuminate.

Week by week

Eleven weeks to the final deadline.

Today is 1 October and the final submission window closes on 16 December. You have the option to target a more budget-friendly Late tier submission, or you can utilize the complete timeframe available to you. Regardless of which deadline strategy you choose, commit to crystallizing your core concept within the first ten days of this period.
  1. 01

    1 to 11 October

    Pick the award and the glitch

    Choose the award you want, then the one thing that goes wrong in your film. Tell it to three people in one sentence.

  2. 02

    12 to 25 October

    Write four pages

    Write four pages in 熙熙, at no cost. Mark the glitch in the page, so it is designed rather than found.

  3. 03

    26 October to 8 November

    Storyboard and look

    Generate the shot breakdown and storyboard. Decide the palette and the distortion once: neon, compression, liquid textures, whatever the film needs.

  4. 04

    9 to 29 November

    Generate the footage

    Scene by scene from the storyboard and references. Keep every prompt: the entry asks you to describe how AI was used.

  5. 05

    30 November to 11 December

    Edit, sound and subtitles

    Cut, mix and subtitle. Export a high-quality master, with English subtitles if the film is in another language.

  6. 06

    By 16 December

    Submit on FilmFreeway

    Enter before the Final Render deadline with your short description of how AI was used. Notifications go out on 23 December.

Traps

Seven ways to be left off the programme.

The submission rules are intentionally brief and direct, with each individual line carrying weight and consequence. Make certain you read through all ten guidelines in their entirety before you commit to paying the entry fee.

  • Rights on the AI elements

    You must hold the rights to the submitted work and to its AI-generated elements. Check every model's terms and every music track.

  • No explanation of AI

    The project must meaningfully involve AI tools, and you must briefly describe how AI was used. A blank field is a weak entry.

  • An older film

    Films must be completed in 2023 or later.

  • No English subtitles

    Films in other languages must include English subtitles.

  • A file that is not ready

    Selected films must provide a high-quality digital screening file. Keep a clean master and a subtitle file at hand before notification day.

  • Waiting for the last tier

    Earlier is cheaper, says the site. 16 December is the last day, and nothing follows it but notifications a week later.

  • Treating slop as an excuse

    The site balances unstable visuals with precise structure. Chaos without a structure underneath is just noise, and the programme is small.

Why 熙熙

Chaos works better when it is planned.

The festival extends an equal welcome to both technically polished films and deliberately chaotic experimental works—no aesthetic hierarchy between refinement and rawness. 熙熙 is purpose-built as an integrated environment for films and series alike: your screenplay, storyboard panels, and video footage all exist and evolve within one unified, interconnected project space.

  • The glitch, storyboarded

    Plan where the film breaks, in which shot, with which frame. A storyboard generated from your screenplay shows the pattern before you spend a generation on it.

  • From two minutes to nineteen

    Season 1's films ran from 1:28 to 19:00 and the rules set no limit. The same project structure holds a two-minute joke and a nineteen-minute story.

  • A description that writes itself

    The entry asks you to say how AI was used. In 熙熙 each shot traces back to its scene, its frame and its prompt, so the answer comes from the project.

  • Start for free, run on Seedance

    Writing is 免费 with no expiry, and the 年度会员 is ¥168 一年 for the storyboard and video generation. Footage pipelines run on Seedance 2.0 and 2.5. No tool is required by the festival.

Real productions

International festival-recognized films have been written and produced with 熙熙.

熙熙 is already functioning as a live creative workspace powering genuine AI film productions in active development and exhibition, spanning work from high-concept cinematic shorts through to multi-episode animated series pilots that have earned selection, nomination, and award recognition from international festivals across multiple continents.

  • Video thumbnail for VOIDBORN

    VOIDBORN

    AI animated / cinematic short

    Festival recognition

    • 1st Place Silver

      Mondial Chroma Awards

    • 2nd Place 熙熙

      Mondial Chroma Awards

    • Award Winner

      Seoul International AI Film Festival

  • Video thumbnail for Les Fils du Vinnana

    Les Fils du Vinnana

    AI short film

    Festival recognition

    • Honorable Mention

      Top Quark Film Festival

    • People's Choice Nominee

      Illuminate Oneness of Humanity

    • Nominee

      ALTFF Supershort

  • Video thumbnail for Lost Garden

    Lost Garden

    AI animated series pilot

    Festival recognition

    • Finalist

      AI London Festival

See what creators are building

The pipeline

Write. Board. Produce.

  1. 熙熙 screenplay editor: acts, sequences and beats above the formatted script of The Yellow Umbrella

    01The screenplay, enriched

    An industry-standard screenplay editor, and more: a visual outline and beat editor, your writing inspirations (notes, photos, audio) kept next to the page, and an AI researcher to support your writing, not replace it.

  2. 熙熙 storyboard: shot S3 of The Yellow Umbrella with characters, shot settings and the script beside it

    02The storyboard, made easy

    Shot breakdown generated from your screenplay, manual control over every shot (frame, angle, movement, duration), and generative AI previsualization in one click.

  3. 熙熙 production canvas: shots S3 and S4 as connected nodes carrying their storyboard panels and prompts

    03AI production, with finesse

    Footage generation pipelines connected to your screenplay and storyboard. Optimized out of the box, fully editable workflow.

More festivals

More festival guides

Go further

Keep reading

FAQ

The AI Slop Film Festival, your questions

How do you win the AI Slop Film Festival?
A jury selects the category winners and the audience chooses the Audience Signal Award. No criteria are published, so aim at one of the nine awards: the Season 1 winners show what works. Make the glitch a decision, and keep a clear structure underneath.
What is the deadline?
The final deadline is 16 December 2026. Earlier tiers are cheaper: 2 October is the last Regular tier, then Late tiers fall on 27 October, 21 November and 16 December. Notifications go out on 23 December.
How long can the film be?
There is no strict limit. Short and feature-length films are accepted. Season 1's programme ran from 1:28 to 19:00.
What does an entry cost?
The site says earlier is cheaper and prints no amounts. Entries go through FilmFreeway, where the fee is shown for each tier.
Does the film have to be made with AI?
The project must meaningfully involve AI tools, and you must briefly describe how AI was used. No specific tool is required.
Is there prize money?
The site lists nine awards and no prize amounts. Treat this as a showcase, not a cash prize.
Where and when is the screening?
On Saturday 23 January 2027 at Rumiversal Studio in Toronto. Doors open at 18:00 and the screening starts at 18:30.
Is 熙熙 allowed?
Yes, since the festival requires no particular tool. The footage in 熙熙 comes from Seedance 2.0 and 2.5. Name 熙熙 and the Seedance version when you explain how AI was used.

Eleven weeks. Start with the glitch.

Begin with the screenplay, free today. The storyboard comes next, then the footage.
Start writing for freeBack to the scene