Academy Awards: AI-use rules

The rules of the Academy Awards on what the rules ask of AI use: screenplays must be human-authored; acting roles must be performed by humans with consent. From 1 source page, read 2026-09-25; no maker pays to be listed.

In the Writing categories, the rules codify that screenplays must be human-authored to be eligible.

Academy Press Office, 99th Oscars rules release

only roles credited in the film’s legal billing and demonstrably performed by humans with their consent will be considered eligible.

Academy Press Office, 99th Oscars rules release

• Rules summary
  Screenplays must be human-authored; acting roles must be performed by humans with consentAcademy Press Office, 99th Oscars rules release / recorded 2026-09-25
• Acting category
  Acting roles count only when performed by humans with their consentAcademy Press Office, 99th Oscars rules release / recorded 2026-09-25

1Festivals with the same reading

Cinema Shift Festival and World AI Film Festival USA have this reading, “human authorship rules”: 3 festivals in all.

It reflects the rules published for the latest edition on the reading day.

2What the rule means for an entrant

This is the rule that decides eligibility first. A film finished with conventional footage and a few generated shots fits a festival that asks for any AI use, but not one that asks for AI in every phase of production or for a film made on one platform.

Inclusion rule. Every festival on the register, with or without a detailed page on this rule. Order. Alphabetical by festival name.

3What a generator hands an entrant

For an entrant reading “Academy Awards”, this is what SceneMixer publishes about the film its pipeline hands over:

SceneMixer writes dialogue into the script analysis, assigns each line to a shot with a speaker and a short delivery note, and the video model performs it — picture and audio generated together, so the mouth forms that sentence in the language you chose.

SceneMixer, AI Dialogue Generator (read 2026-10-13)

SceneMixer generates each character once as a full-body reference sheet — 9:16, plain background, directional key light, identity features written before any technical instruction — and then attaches crops of that sheet to every shot the character appears in.

SceneMixer, AI Character Sheet Generator (read 2026-10-13)

4More on this rule

• Academy Awards, all eight rules
• What the rules ask of AI at every festival
• World AI Film Festival USA on AI-use rules
• AI Film Festival Japan on AI-use rules