AI-era independent cinema · Montreal

The auteur
in the age of
the machine.

A festival for films with one unmistakable point of view - shot, built, and finished by the person whose name is on it.

Montreal, QC October 24, 2026 · 6:00 to 8:00 PM

Enter your film Free tickets The prizes

AI Independent Montreal FestivalIndependent cinema for the age of AI, made in Montreal.

mailbox@aiindependentmontreal.com

01 / Manifesto

For most of cinema's history, one voice could only go so far alone. That ceiling is coming down.

A single filmmaker with a point of view can now build what used to take a full crew and a production calendar. We are interested in what that changes about authorship, not in what it automates.

Montreal has argued about cinema in two languages for a century. It is a city of small crews, cold winters, long edits, and a stubborn belief that a film should sound like the person who made it. That is exactly the room we want for this work.

Show us the film that sounds like no one but you.

02 / Awards

Six prizes, no genre.

The Independent Vision Award

Grand Prize. Best film overall.

The Against the Grain Award

Best unconventional film.

The New Auteur Award

Best debut film.

The Latent Worlds Award

Best world-building.

The Solo Creator Award

Best solo-made film.

The Open Frame Award

Best experimental work.

03 / The Work

What we take.

AI in the buildArtificial intelligence has to figure somewhere in the making: generation, animation, effects, sound, music, voice, editing, writing, or the thinking that came first.

IndependenceSelf-produced and independently financed work of any form. We do not sort films by genre. We sort them by whether they have a voice.

FormatShort and mid-length films, up to 40 minutes.

LanguageFilms in French or English screen as they are. Anything else needs French or English subtitles.

AuthorshipThe film has to be your own, every borrowed frame and note cleared for you to use, model output included. Lifted or infringing work is dropped.

04 / Screening