Judging Criteria

Every submissions will be reviewed by our international jury of leading professionals from film, sound design, AI art, and contemporary media.

The Submission Pathway

• Category Limits - Each category will accept a maximum of 50 qualified entries. Once a category is full, it will close, and creators will be guided to submit to other open categories.
• Quality Gate - All works must pass a preliminary review for technical standards, thematic relevance, and artistic quality. Only approved works will enter the category longlist.
• Shortlist and Feedback - From the longlists, the jury will select a shortlist of 20 works (five per category). Each shortlisted creator will receive written feedback from the jury.
• Winners - One winner will be crowned in each of the 4 categories, and one project will receive the People’s Choice Award.

General Requirements

• Submissions - Entries must be submitted via the official Google Form on our website.
• Submission Limit - Each participant may submit up to two distinct works.
• AI Collaboration - Videos must be created using AI tools (e.g., such as video, sound or text generation, animation, voice synthesis.
• Technical Specifications –

1. Duration: 3 to 15 minutes.
2. Quality: Full HD (1920x1080) or higher.
3. Format: MP4, MOV, or AVI.
4. Subtitles: English subtitles are required for any non-English dialogue or narration.

• Contest Timeline:

1. Submission Window: October 24, 2025 – January 25, 2026
2. Shortlist Announcement: January 30, 2026
3. People’s Choice Voting: February 2 – 16, 2026
4. Nominees Announcement: February 20, 2026
5. Winners Revealed: February 27, 2026

Additional Conditions:

• No edits are permitted after submission.
• While not mandatory, premiere status is preferred.
• Videos must be free of logos or trademarks from other festivals.
• To ensure absolute fairness, authors with a personal or professional relationship (familial, romantic, or close friendship) with any jury member will be ineligible for prizes.

The organizers reserve the right to adjust the rules or extend the submission period if necessary. Any changes to the schedule will be communicated promptly through our official channels.
Due to the high volume of submissions, we cannot provide individual feedback at the quality gate stage. Written feedback is a privilege reserved for our shortlisted creators.

Ethical Commitment

UnHuman Shorts is dedicated to the responsible, imaginative, and ethical use of AI.
Entries containing extreme violence, pornography, hate speech, or discriminatory content will not be permitted under any circumstance.

Neutrality and Focus on Art

We uphold a principle of artistic neutrality, creating a sanctuary for creativity away from the noise of ideology.
We welcome creators from all backgrounds and cultures, however, we exclude political, extremist, or conflict-related topics.
Our mission is to preserve a space of clarity and creative trust where the partnership between human and machine can be explored freely and meaningfully. In a world saturated with conflict, UnHuman Shorts aim to be a threshold into pure imagination.