In this issue
| 🎬Going deep into the craft: how the year's best work gets made |
| 🤝Who is going to be in the room |
| 📅The two-day schedule (and a tease for the builders) |
| 📥Submissions update |
| 🎟Early bird tickets end September 15 |
AAIFF 2026 · October 16 + 17 · The Topfer at ZACH Theatre, Austin
What AAIFF is for
Every art form got figured out by people showing each other their work. Film, animation, computer graphics, sound design, digital VFX: the pioneers got great by learning from each other. They opened up their workflows, admitted what failed, and handed the next person months of their life back.
What starts as one person's invention eventually becomes the language everyone speaks.
That is what AAIFF is for.
| Get Early Bird Tickets |
Deep into the craft
The filmmakers behind the year's best hybrid and generative work are stepping on stage to walk through exactly how they did it. We are talking workflows, hard decisions, complete failures, and the single shots that took a week to solve. We are here to look under the hood. No surface-level fluff, just a complete focus on how the work actually gets made.
Who is in the room
Look around in October, and you'll see directors, writers, producers, editors, animators, VFX artists, technologists, and the students coming up right behind them.
Independent filmmakers will sit next to studio producers. Someone shipping their first short will sit next to someone with three commercials in the market. Nobody is sorted by their background, because the work is what everyone has in common.
How the two days work
We're taking over The Topfer at ZACH Theatre in Austin for two days, October 16 and 17.
Day One (Oct 16), The Summit: Keynotes, panels, and live demos from the people actually making the work.
Day Two (Oct 17), The Screenings: We put the Official Selection on the big screen, followed by filmmaker interviews, masterclasses, and the closing awards show.
A tease for the builders: We are working on a dedicated Creator Hackathon to serve as an official kickoff ahead of the main festival. We are locking in the final logistics and venue for this right now. If you are a developer, engineer, or technical filmmaker, keep an eye out. We will have a major update for you soon.
Where submissions stand
A quick update on the films: submissions officially closed on August 15, and our Selection Committee is deep in the trenches now. Every film is being watched and scored purely on merit.
We will announce the 2026 Official Selection soon, and in the next issue of this newsletter, we'll open up the numbers to show you exactly what came in.
Join us in Austin
Early bird pricing is live now, but it ends on September 15. Get in early, save some money, and come see it for yourself.
| Get Early Bird Tickets |
AAIFF 2026 · October 16 + 17 · The Topfer at ZACH Theatre, Austin