The biggest single prize in AI filmmaking is open again. The 2027 AI Film Award, presented at the 1 Billion Followers Summit in Dubai, is accepting entries from filmmakers worldwide — and the winning film takes home a grand prize of $1 million. Submissions close on 20 November 2026.
This is the award’s second edition, attached to the fifth edition of the summit, which runs 8–10 January 2027 in Dubai. The award is organised with BytePlus, ByteDance’s enterprise technology arm, and supported by TikTok. The winner will be announced at the summit itself, with the finalist films screened there.
What you have to make
This is a finished-film award, not a script or pitch competition. Your entry must be an original film made specifically for this competition, running five to seven minutes, in horizontal 16:9 format at 1080p, delivered as MOV or MP4. Films may be in any language but must include English subtitles. Entrants must be at least 18, and — important for anyone who has fought rights battles — creators retain ownership and copyright of their submitted work.
The defining rule: at least 70% of the film must be generated with Dreamina Seedance, ByteDance’s AI video-generation model. Other AI tools, standard editing software, and original live-action footage are all allowed for the remaining share, as long as the film clears that 70% Seedance minimum. In other words, this award is built to showcase one platform’s model at feature quality — plan your production pipeline around Seedance from the first shot, not as an afterthought.
The five themes
Entries should answer one of five briefs:
- Society, community and humanitarian issues — the challenges facing communities
- Truth, fake news and misinformation — how information shapes people’s lives
- Humans and AI — our relationship with the technology itself
- Climate, nature and the changing planet
- Human relationships — family, romantic and friendship bonds
Films are judged on their use of AI, storytelling, creativity, aesthetics, and technical execution. Note the order of that list in practice: the AI craft is a scored category, but storytelling sits right beside it. A technically dazzling film with nothing to say is not what this jury is screening for.
The road to Dubai
The timeline after the deadline moves fast. The Top 10 shortlist is announced on 15 December 2026, when public voting opens. The five finalists follow on 25 December, and their films screen during the summit in January, where the $1 million winner is announced live.
That structure adds a second discipline to the entry: the finalists’ films play to a summit audience and a public vote, so a film that travels — clear story, strong subtitles, an ending people talk about — has an edge beyond the judges’ scoresheet.
Our take at Christifa & Associates
We track AI-friendly competitions closely, and this one sits at the far end of the commitment scale. PixVerse’s PixLight, which we covered earlier this month, lets you enter a screenplay and a short pitch. Dubai asks for a complete five-to-seven-minute finished film, built mostly in one named tool, inside roughly three weeks. That is a real production sprint — but the prize is a million dollars, the copyright stays with the creator, and the entry is open worldwide with no residence requirement.
For filmmakers already fluent in Seedance, this is the obvious target of the season. For everyone else, the honest calculation is time: can you story, generate, edit, subtitle, and polish seven minutes by 20 November? If the answer is yes, there is no bigger room to put it in.
Christifa & Associates covers photography and film contests and open calls in our Photography coverage. Details above are drawn from reporting on the organizer’s announcement (Gulf News and Emirates 24|7, via Devo Dubai); always confirm the final rules on the official award entry page before submitting.