Entrant notes: reading festival rules
The notes cover choosing where to enter, keeping a record of tools, rights and likeness, running time, and what a licence to the organiser means. As of 2026-09-25.
Each note takes its examples from the register and links them back to the festival they come from.
They rest on what the rules say, not on how any festival has judged in the past.
Read them before the final cut, while the film can still be changed to fit a rule.
Where a note names a festival, the example links to that festival's page, so each point can be checked against the rules it quotes.
1Pages here
- Check the AI rule before anything else — The AI rule can rule out an entry on its own. A note for AI filmmakers preparing a festival entry.
- Check which edition the rules belong to — A festival's page often shows last year's rules long after the deadline, and the next edition's before it opens.
- Entry without a fee is common, with strings — Six festivals on the register state that entry is free, among them Runway's festival and its Gen:48 challenge, Astana and the Chroma Awards.
- Faces, voices and music in an AI entry — AI makes it easy to put a recognisable face or voice in a film, and festival rules have caught up.
- How established festivals treat AI — Two established events on the register show the two main positions.
- Keep a tool log while working — Eleven festivals on the register ask entrants to say which tools they used or how AI was used.
- One cut rarely fits every festival — Running-time rules on the register do not overlap cleanly. A note for AI filmmakers preparing a festival entry.
- Plan for the trip to the screening — Many festivals on the register end in a room, not a feed. A note for AI filmmakers preparing a festival entry.
- Platform contests: big prizes, one tool — Platform contests carry some of the register's largest sums: Higgsfield's $1,000,000 across 14 placements, for films made entirely within its ecosystem…
- Read the licence before entering — Keeping copyright is the norm on the register, but the licence that comes with an entry varies a great deal.
2What a generator hands an entrant
For an entrant reading “Entrant notes”, this is what SceneMixer publishes about the film its pipeline hands over:
The final cut ends on an end card: your main image plus four lines — Brand, Product name, Tagline, Call to action. The first two are read from your photo and your brief; the tagline and call to action are written with the script.
SceneMixer, The End Card (read 2026-10-13)
Downloads and the asset library follow your Music switch; a shared link always plays the version with the episode’s music.
SceneMixer, Background Music in an AI Short Drama: The Built-in Score — “Does the music carry into downloads, the library and shared links?” (read 2026-10-13)