A small festival of AI-assisted shorts. Real screening, real studio, films that somebody actually finished. Old skill meeting new tooling, the city in the background, nobody pretending the seam isn't there. We like the seam.
A small festival of AI-assisted shorts. Real screening, real studio, films that somebody actually finished. Old skill meeting new tooling, the city in the background, nobody pretending the seam isn't there. We like the seam.
You already know what's coming. The grand opening line about cinema being reborn. The word "redefining." Something about a journey. We're going to skip past all of that because you know we're going to skip past all of that, and we know you know, and pretending otherwise would be insulting to both of us.
So here are the actual facts. On August 7, a festival called London AI Shorts is happening at Havelock Aura Studio. It is for short films made with AI. It will be small. It will be in London. It will end at some point, like all things.
Picture the bust. Marble jaw. Curls done by a sculptor two thousand years ago. A bolt cracked across the face, and behind the crack, a circuit board glowing quietly. That's the festival. — Old skill, new bolt.
In a real studio. With films that someone sat down and actually finished, instead of posting a 12-second teaser and moving on. The whole night is built around the unsexy fact that finishing a short film, even now, even with the tools, is still hard. We want to celebrate the people who do it.
Plus a short note: what tools, what process, what choices. Three or four sentences. We just want it on the record. We read every submission.
The one we'd push into everyone's hands.
For the clearest authorial hand across the runtime.
Under 2 minutes. For the shortest film that does the most.
For the look, the world, the frame. The thing your eye stays on. Marble and circuit board, working as one.
For audio that's actually mixed. Score, design, the works.
For the script, the voiceover, the words, the structure underneath it all.
Voted live on the night. No jury. Just the room.
A working space in London. The screen is going to be set up properly. The chairs are going to be chairs. The room is going to feel lived in by the time we start, because that's what studios do.
Doors early, films in waves, short conversations with the filmmakers between blocks, awards near the end. You probably won't have your life changed. But you'll see ten or twelve films you wouldn't have seen otherwise, meet a few people doing the same weird thing as you, and walk back out into London with a slightly different idea of what's possible in eight minutes or less.
30 seconds to 12 minutes. This is a shorts festival. We mean shorts.
Send your film plus a short note: what tools, what process, what choices. Three or four sentences. We just want it on the record.
Narrative, animation, doc, music video, ad, experimental, whatever doesn't fit a label yet. The film has to actually hold together. Not just look like something. We program work, not loops.
You must own the rights to everything in the film, including any training data that isn't public domain or properly licensed. If you're not sure, ask before you send it.
Hard line.
Credit everyone. Human and tool. Hidden contributors get the film pulled.
Just one. Pick your strongest.
We screen your film on August 7 and use a short clip in our recap. That's the deal. You keep everything else.