AI Film Festival Guide: How the Festiva AI World Tour Works
Festiva AI is the world's first global AI film festival — a touring, community-driven circuit for synthetic cinema. Instead of one venue in one city, the 2027 festival moves every three weeks across twelve cities in the United States and Canada, from a St. Pete launch to a Miami finale. A December 2026 European pop-up series runs first across Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Milan, Paris, Munich, Berlin, and Holland. Every stop screens films made with generative AI tools — text-to-video models, AI score generators, synthetic voices — and every stop sends its winning film forward to the world final.
The festival is open to anyone. Filmmakers submit a finished work of ten to twenty minutes through the submission page, priced at one dollar per minute of runtime. Submissions are stored securely, reviewed by the festival team, and then screened at the tour stop they select. Accepted genres span narrative, documentary, animation, experimental work, and music videos.
What makes the format unusual is its four-way voting system. Each film's final score combines 30% audience votes cast in the theater, 30% judge votes from invited critics and festival professionals, and 40% industry votes from producers, distributors, and studios — with an additional AI agent score reported alongside the human result. The winning film of each city advances, and after the twelve-stop circuit the world winner is crowned in Miami, under the neon of the finale city.
Festiva AI was founded by Raphael Bar-Adam Gross and Bayan Farhat, founder of the Airbrid AI education platform in the Golan Heights, who built the platform, its submission pipeline, and its touring schedule as one product. The festival's first season opens in St. Pete, Florida, on Valentine's Day — February 14, 2027 — aimed primarily at audiences across Florida and the US Southeast, with the full world tour following. Use the guide below to see where the circuit goes next, or head to the submission page to enter a film.
About Festiva AI
Festiva AI is produced by Super Festiva, a doing-business-as name of RBG.AI LLC, headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida. The company operates the festival platform, its submission pipeline, and the touring circuit as one product, built jointly by its two founders.
Raphael Bar-Adam Gross
Co-Founder · RBG.AIStrategic consultant for non-profits, artists, and small businesses, described on his site as "the archaeologist of buried value and the AI wizard of transformation." His career moves from the analog to the AI: custom frame factories mass-producing for professional photographers across all fifty states, gallery outposts representing major contemporary artists, then leading the crossing from analog film to digital infrastructure, and now the Oracle Practice, an AI-plus-archaeology consulting methodology.
Bayan Farhad
Co-Founder · Technology & EducationA versatile, multilingual technology leader with more than twenty years of experience across information technology, mobility, and logistics, and a proven management track record. He also founded the Airbrid AI education platform in the Golan Heights, bringing hands-on AI learning to the region, and leads the platform engineering behind Festiva AI's submission pipeline and touring infrastructure.
The tour, city by city
- WK 01St. Pete · USAValentine's Day 2027. The festival opens on February 14, 2027, screening the first global slate of AI-native films on the St. Pete waterfront and setting the format every later stop follows.
- WK 02Los Angeles · USAHollywood meets the algorithm. Studio technology teams and AI toolmakers screen work made with the latest text-to-video models.
- WK 03Vienna · AustriaWhere Strauss meets the algorithm. Imperial ballrooms and art-house halls host the tour's most classical week of generative cinema.
- WK 04Paris · FranceThe auteur tradition meets generative art. Paris hosts the tour's critics' week, where judges carry extra weight.
- WK 05Berlin · GermanyEuropean Championships: the auteur capital of Europe crowns the continent's winner. A Berlinale-grade week of synthetic cinema.
- WK 06New York · USAThe industry descends on Manhattan. Producers, distributors, and studios weigh in with the heaviest industry voting bloc of the tour.
- WK 07Toronto · CanadaCanada's screen hub joins the circuit. Toronto's film community and international distributors preview the tour's North American contenders.
- WK 08Miami · USAThe grand finale. All city winners screen again and a celebrity jury joins the global audience, judges, and industry to crown the world's best AI film under the neon of Miami.
Quick answers
- Who can submit a film?
- Any filmmaker working with AI tools. Films must run between ten and twenty minutes, and each submission is priced at one dollar per minute.
- How are winners decided?
- 30% audience vote, 30% judges, and 40% industry — combined into one score, with the AI agent score published alongside it.
- Where does the tour start?
- St. Pete, Florida opens the tour on February 14, 2027, and Miami hosts the world finale, after stops in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Nashville, Austin, New York, Charleston, Chicago, Toronto, and Palm Beach. A December 2026 European pop-up series runs across Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Milan, Paris, Munich, Berlin, and Holland.