Lumara Film Festival names six finalists from 700 AI films

The Lumara Film Festival named six finalists on October 16 for its first AI film festival, chosen from more than 700 submissions.

The announcement came in a MoonPay press release and is confirmed on the festival's own site and in MoonPay's newsroom. Submissions ran from July 24 to September 15. Entry was free and open worldwide, and filmmakers could use any AI filmmaking platform.

The six finalists are "Black Thunder" (Ryan Lightbourn), "Candy" (Jiaze Li), "Gabriel" (T Zhang), "Killabears - The Broadcast" (Mikael Tyrsen), "Living with a Merman" (Chris Capel) and "Mianmian" (Yingjie Chen). They compete for the Grand Prize and the Jury Selection award, and each will screen in full at the awards night.

The Grand Prize pays $32,000 plus 3.2 million Venice AI credits, and Jury Selection pays $20,000 plus 2 million credits. Five category awards follow: Terminal, for experimental film, and Serenissima, for the best film made with Venice, each pay $12,000 plus 1.2 million credits. Get Shorty (under two minutes), Mouse (children and young adults) and Rekt (satire, comedy or musical about finance, markets or crypto) each pay $8,000 plus 800,000 credits. The seven prizes add up to $100,000, which matches the "up to $100,000 in cash prizes and matching Venice credits" the festival advertised. The same release names 16 nominees across those five categories.

Lumara is presented by MoonPay, the crypto payments company, and Venice, a privacy-first AI platform. The festival judged films on the strength of the idea, the quality of the storytelling and how well each filmmaker used AI. The jury includes Voidstomper, Gossip Goblin and Chris White, an executive producer on A24's "Backrooms," alongside JBoogxCreative, Heavy Pulp, SÜNDERMANN, BLVCKL!GHT, Ansem and FaZe Banks.

Winners are announced live at the screening and awards night on October 26 at the Roxy Hotel Cinema in New York City, a 118-seat theater inside The Roxy Hotel. The evening also includes an extended prologue of "Gods Don't Give Gifts," the AI feature from jury member Gossip Goblin, which the release describes as the first AI film slated for a wide theatrical release at the end of this year.

For creators, the prize list is the clearest number the festival has published: cash and Venice credits for AI-native work, awarded after a jury weighed the idea, the story and the tools. Every entry had to describe the AI tools it used and how AI contributed, so a win here doubles as a public account of what the models did.

Winners are announced live on October 26 at the Roxy Hotel Cinema in New York City, and the winning films premiere online on X and YouTube on October 27.