What happened
Twenty-one films from ten countries have made the New Frames 2026 shortlist, chosen from 221 submissions. The shortlisted works now compete for the grand prize and two special prizes: the Viewers' Favourite, decided by public vote, and Best AI Filmmaking.
Roughly one entry in ten made the cut. The final selection runs from a 66-second student short to a 27-minute experimental film, and from a fully generated documentary to live-action films that used AI only for storyboards or voice-over.
A European-led, student-heavy selection
Italy leads the shortlist with five films, followed by Germany with four and Türkiye with three. Poland and Romania have two each, and Estonia, France, Latvia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom one each.
Eight of the 21 are student projects, from schools including the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna, the Baltic Film, Media and Arts School in Tallinn and The Hague University of Applied Sciences.
The films take on war, migration, illness, work and memory as often as they explore science fiction. Sabine von Bassewitz uses generated imagery in Symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis to show her own symptoms, which she argues a camera cannot capture. Emilian Szopa's Laika retells the first dog in orbit from the animal's point of view. Testimony of Desperation, from Estonia's Baltic Film, Media and Arts School, follows refugees crossing the Mediterranean.
The toolkits are just as varied. Runway, Kling, Hailuo, Luma Ray3, Veo and Seedance carry most of the generated footage, with Suno, ElevenLabs and Stable Audio on sound. Lorenzo Rossini built EATEOL entirely with open-source models in ComfyUI, then ran it through a real VHS tape. Sophia Ferreira Sabino's Forgive me God for I have Synthed is staged inside the TempleOS interface, with visuals and sound programmed with Claude.
At the other end, the UK's In Tandem is a 15-minute drama starring Nina Wadia, made through a ScreenSkills training programme in virtual production and ethically led AI workflows. Lydia Marx's Little Pictures casts a camera drone as roommate, narrator and image-maker.
The 21 shortlisted films
Listed alphabetically by title. Student projects are marked.
| Film | Director(s) | Country | Runtime | Main AI tools |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Artifacts of Us (Bizden Kalanlar) | Uğur Tatar | Türkiye | 1:35 | Luma Ray3, Adobe Firefly |
| The Dream and the Mirror | Giuseppe Gallo | Italy | 3:58 | Not stated |
| EATEOL (student) | Lorenzo Rossini | Italy | 2:00 | ComfyUI with Wan, Qwen, AnimateDiff, Stable Diffusion |
| For Children (student) | Alice Trentini | Italy | 1:49 | Hailuo 2.3 via Leonardo AI, Stable Audio, ChatGPT |
| Forgive me God for I have Synthed (student) | Sophia Ferreira Sabino | Netherlands | 5:40 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| Ghosts of Humanity | Sergios DeLaurentis | Latvia | 4:00 | Not stated |
| In Tandem | Joseph A. Adesunloye, Yasmeen Ghrawi, Tolu Stedford | United Kingdom | 14:49 | Magnific |
| Knocking on Doors (Bussare alle porte) | Elena Caruso | Italy | 1:22 | Nano Banana 2, Higgsfield |
| Laika | Emilian Szopa | Poland | 3:30 | Not stated |
| The Last Shift (student) | Andreea-Alina Stoica | Romania | 1:06 | Nano Banana, Veo 3 Lite, ElevenLabs |
| Little Pictures (student) | Lydia Marx | Germany | 27:00 | ElevenLabs |
| Loneliness in Colors | Ali Rıza Ateş | Türkiye | 7:12 | Hailuo, GPT, Suno |
| Mikrokosmos Makrokosmos | Caspar de Gelmini | Germany | 7:03 | Adobe |
| Perdu de vue | Thomas Desliens, Charles Ancery | France | 16:00 | Seedance, Kling |
| Symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis | Sabine von Bassewitz | Germany | 3:49 | Midjourney, Runway, Suno |
| Talità Kum | Francesco Luigi Bertini | Italy | 1:39 | CapCut |
| Testimony of Desperation (student) | Markuss Megnis, Triin Kauber, Kaur Terep | Estonia | 2:40 | Runway Gen-4.5, ElevenLabs |
| Two Worlds | Mihai Vulpe | Romania | 1:14 | Kling, Suno |
| Vision (Wizja) (student) | Karolina Anna Krzyżaniak, Natalia Kazimierska | Poland | 5:18 | Gemini |
| Who Told You I Don't Love You? | Vadim Ehrlich | Germany | 4:24 | Not stated |
| The World I Built (Kurduğum Dünya) (student) | Siba Adnan İzz | Türkiye | 3:43 | ChatGPT, Gemini, Runway, Yandex, Suno, CapCut |
What happens next
The jury will now review all 21 films for the grand prize and the Best AI Filmmaking award. The Viewers' Favourite prize goes to the shortlisted film with the most public votes, so audiences have a direct say in the result.
Voting is open from 6 to 14 November. Winners will be announced on 15 November.
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