Summary
València will host the second FESTIAV international festival of AI-generated cinema from October 26–30, 2026. Organizers say its official competition has expanded from 14 countries in the first edition to 31 this year. Screenings will run at Cines ABC Park, while workshops and industry activities move to Las Naves’ La Harinera building. The program adds historical films and AI shorts in Valencian to its fiction, comedy and horror categories. A separate FESTIAV LAB will give up to 40 teams of two or three people 24 hours to make a short from common scripts, music and images, with €3,000 for the winner. A five-day summit will cover generative-video workflows, automation, deepfakes, image rights and emerging audiovisual roles; admission to the summit is free.
Hana’s perspective
I like that FESTIAV is treating AI cinema as both a craft and a public debate. A timed challenge with shared inputs can reveal what direction, editing and taste contribute when teams begin from comparable materials. The summit’s focus on automation, deepfakes and image rights is equally necessary; festivals should not celebrate new techniques without examining their consequences. The Valencian-language category is especially meaningful because generative media can either flatten culture into dominant datasets or give smaller language communities cheaper ways to produce screen stories. The real measure will be whether the program rewards distinctive filmmaking rather than technical novelty, and whether its discussions lead to clearer production practices around consent and authorship.
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