Austin AI Film Festival opens with 40 films from 700 entries
Friday's Summit puts the filmmaker behind Junkyard King on stage for a craft masterclass, before the 40 selected films screen and the awards close the event.
Key takeaways
- The second annual Austin AI Film Festival runs October 16 and 17, 2026 at The Topfer at Zach Theater in Austin, Texas, with 40 films chosen from more than 700 submissions.
- Passes run from $79 for the Saturday Screening Pass to $199 for All Access, with the Summit Pass at $99 and the Festival Pass at $149, per the festival's own ticketing page.
- Friday's Summit includes masterclasses with PJ Accetturo of Genre.ai, Conrad Curtis of Beeble, Billy Boman, Henry Daubrez of ODD KID and Joni Dobrov of Exact, and Saturday's fireside conversation features actor Zachary Levi.
- Organizers call AAIFF "the largest independent AI film festival in the nation and the only one in Texas," a claim the festival makes about itself in its lineup announcement.
The second annual Austin AI Film Festival opens today at The Topfer at Zach Theater. Forty films chosen from more than 700 submissions screen on October 17.
The festival's lineup announcement calls AAIFF "the largest independent AI film festival in the nation and the only one in Texas." That is the organizers' claim about their own event. The Texas Film Commission's listing fills in the scale behind it: more than 700 films were submitted for 2026, and the inaugural 2025 edition drew more than 300 attendees from around the world.
What Is the Austin AI Film Festival?
AAIFF is a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit that takes over Zach Theater, at 202 S Lamar Blvd, for two days. Friday is the Summit, a run of keynotes, panels and masterclasses. Saturday is the Official Selection, the fireside conversation and the awards ceremony. This is the festival's second year, and its founder and president is Aaron Sanchez.
Friday is heavy on creators explaining process. PJ Accetturo, CEO of Genre.ai, opens the masterclasses with a Dreamina session on the original IP the festival bills as more than 400 million views. Conrad Curtis of Beeble and Billy Boman of Boman Studios each lead a masterclass, and Henry Daubrez of ODD KID leads one titled Hot or Slop. Joni Dobrov of Exact walks through The Zim. Two panels, The Superhuman Director and Brands & Commercials, break up the afternoon, according to the agenda.
Saturday runs the selection in blocks by category, then hands the stage to actor Zachary Levi, founder of Wyldwood Studios, with Pinar Seyhan Demirdag of EVRN, Jason Fisher of StageRunner and C. Sean Yuksel of GRAFX Co. for a fireside conversation. The winners from the free 48-hour Global Virtual GenJam hackathon, staged October 8 to 10 with Machine Cinema and AITX, screen at 3:25 p.m., and the awards ceremony closes the night at 7:15, per the festival's ticketing page.
The 40 films span eleven categories: features, shorts, micro-shorts, music videos, documentaries, series episodes, trailers, avant-garde films, commercial and brand films, hybrid live-action films and student films. The judges include director and cinematographer Louie Schwartzberg, production designer Rick Carter, Fox Entertainment's Jon Flynn, producer-director Sarba Das, journalist and filmmaker Seema Mathur and generative artist BLVCKL!GHT.
Some of the people on stage arrive with released work behind them. Daubrez's ODD KID put out the second episode of Junkyard King in August, a 15-minute episode that Animation Magazine covered on August 27. Amaru Zeas-Sigüenza, who sits on Friday's Superhuman Director panel, has The 8th Candle in this year's Official Selection, and the festival's bio says he now builds cinematic AI workflows at Griptape, part of Foundry.
Passes run from $79 for the Saturday Screening Pass to $199 for All Access, with the Summit Pass at $99 and the Festival Pass at $149. The festival's announcement also frames the second year against Texas Senate Bill 22, which the organizers say commits $1.5 billion to the state's film incentive program over the next decade.
Passes and the full two-day schedule are at austinaifilmfest.com, where single-day tickets start at $79 for Saturday's screenings.
Sources
- austinaifilmfest.com - festival's own site: speakers, judges, sponsors, venue, the 40-film Official Selection, nonprofit status
- austinaifilmfest.com - Day One agenda: session times, masterclass titles, panel lineup
- luma.com - festival's ticketing and event page: full two-day schedule, Saturday fireside lineup, pass names and prices, GenJam screening time
- prnewswire.com - the selection announcement: 40 films, more than 700 submissions, eleven categories, pass prices, the "largest" claim, Senate Bill 22
- gov.texas.gov - Texas Film Commission listing: more than 700 submissions, 11 categories, more than 300 attendees at the inaugural 2025 festival
- animationmagazine.net - Ramin Zahed, August 27, 2026: ODD KID's Junkyard King second episode, its 15-minute runtime