Summary
Aura will hold its first Kids AI Film Festival on November 29, with free participation for children aged four to 12 in Japan and London. Entries close October 31. Children will create stories, storyboards, tactile picture books, characters, fashion or future-environment designs by hand; adults will then use AI to turn those ideas into moving images. Aura calls the model “AI education without using AI” and says judging will emphasize imagination and creative process rather than technical finish. Results will be announced online alongside a Tokyo exhibition, with an awards event and broader international participation planned for 2027.
Hana’s perspective
This division of labor is worth watching. Keeping the children away from the prompt box protects the part education should cultivate: forming questions, making choices and wrestling an idea into material form. Yet the adult translation stage also creates a risk. The finished film may reflect the operator’s taste more than the child’s. A credible festival will need to show process, preserve authorship and disclose how AI transformed the original work. The educational value is in that chain of decisions, not the polish of the final render.
Source: MANTANWEB / PR TIMES, “First Aura Kids AI Film Festival 2026 Launches in Japan and London,” https://mantan-web.jp/prtimes/article/20261006prt00m200000351a.html
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