In this issue
| 🌟Ayça User joins as Executive Director |
| 🎬C. Sean Yuksel joins the Advisory Board |
| 🎟Submissions are open through August 15 |
A growing team
The Austin AI Film Festival is expanding its leadership team as we prepare for the next phase of growth, programming, and community impact.
We are proud to welcome Ayça User as Executive Director. Ayça has also joined the festival's Board of Directors. And we are pleased to welcome C. Sean Yuksel to the Advisory Board, where he will support the festival's creative technology, production, and industry strategy.
Ayça User, Executive Director.
Ayça brings deep experience in festival building, cultural programming, and cross-disciplinary creative leadership. Over more than a decade at Moon and Stars Project, she helped shape the New York Turkish Film Festival and led Cinema and Grants initiatives in collaboration with institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Her work spans curatorial development, artist programs, grant-supported cultural projects, and community-centered cultural exchange.
In their words
For Founder and President Aaron Sanchez, this expansion marks an important step in the festival's evolution:
"Austin deserves a world-class celebration of cinema created by filmmakers working at the forefront of new technology. This is an ecosystem uniquely possible here, where creative excellence and technological innovation naturally meet. With Ayça stepping in as Executive Director and Sean joining as an advisor, we are preparing to scale our programs to match the ambition and global reach of the world's leading film festivals. This is the beginning of building something truly meaningful for Austin, for the creative community, and for the future of film."
C. Sean Yuksel, Advisory Board.
C. Sean Yuksel brings more than two decades across production, post-production, motion design, VFX, and emerging creative technologies:
"Over the past twenty years, I built GRAFX CO. from the ground up as a production and post-production company dedicated to high-end content and film, and I have been a partner at Dreamspace Co., an international creative, brand, and experiential agency. Our work has always lived where storytelling, human experience, digital design, and brand building meet. From strategy and design to large-scale activations and content, everything we do is built to bring brands and audiences together. My lifelong commitment to human-centered design is what drew me to the Austin AI Film Festival. I joined because I see a real opportunity to bring our strengths together, helping the festival grow into a space where filmmakers, studios, policymakers, and audiences can explore AI as a tool that amplifies human creativity and protects authorship."
For Ayça User, the role is rooted in a belief that festivals can be more than showcases:
"My career has been shaped by the belief that film festivals are engines for discovery, connection, and community transformation. As Executive Director, my focus is to uphold artistic excellence, expand access, and create a welcoming space for honest dialogue around authorship, provenance, credit, and ethics. The Austin AI Film Festival will serve as a bridge for artists, crews, and technologists to learn from one another, push creative boundaries responsibly, and keep human storytelling at the core."
What's next
With this expanded leadership team, AAIFF is building toward a festival that reflects Austin's creative energy, technological leadership, and growing role in the future of storytelling.
AAIFF 2026 will take place October 16–17 at ZACH Theatre in Austin.
Submissions for AAIFF 2026 are open until August 15. If you're creating work with AI as part of your filmmaking process, we invite you to submit.
| Submit Your Film |