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Tickets Available April 1

Where AI and Industry meet

The TOKEN festival is an in-person and hybrid event designed to uplift the works of new AI film makers and connect the art form to traditional creators and resources in film and television

Our mission is to showcase the latest advancements and techniques in AI filmmaking. Through panels and Q&A’s with experts, we aim to advance the field of movie making 

Why We’re Not Just Another AI Film Festival

Talks Talks Talks

The future is always being charted. The festival focuses on building dialogue with leaders in traditional film and television—storytellers, directors, and creatives—because our goal is not merely to spotlight new technology, but to advance it with intention, craft, and purpose

Storytelling

Storytelling anchors Token, guiding selection, themes, and purpose. It ensures technology serves narrative, not spectacle, creating emotional resonance. By centering human experience, storytelling becomes the festival’s north star, shaping meaningful connections between AI, creators, and audiences

Chicago

Token AIFF is rooted in the midwest while being International in scale. We aim to reflect this beautiful city of ours through the festival.

Bloomers Over Zoomers

The festival embraces a bloomer mentality: cautiously optimistic about AI’s role as a creative collaborator that can work alongside and integrate with traditional media. It celebrates innovation while thoughtfully engaging with the cultural and ethical concerns of a rapidly changing world.

Meet your awards

  • Audience Choice



    Chosen by you. All festival attendees will have the opportunity to rank their favorite films. To the winner go the spoils.

  • Golden Squid

    The Grand Jury Prize. Awarded to the best film at the festival, selected by a jury made up of artists and industry experts

  • Best Comedy



    Honors the film that best uses AI to explore conflict, character, and narrative tension with depth and seriousness. It recognizes emotionally grounded storytelling where the technology strengthens dramatic impact.

  • Best Ethicist

    A one of a kind AI FF award - The Ethicist is awarded to the best film turning a mirror on the conversations of AI and similar technological advances

  • Best Emotion



    Recognizes a film that uses artificial intelligence to evoke a powerful emotional response in the audience. It honors work where AI meaningfully deepens feeling, empathy, or emotional resonance.

  • Best Fantasy


    Celebrates a film that uses artificial intelligence to build imaginative worlds, characters, or mythologies beyond conventional reality. It honors visionary storytelling where AI expands the scope of fantasy and creative possibility.

// Attendee info //

The festival will take place on Saturday, September 5, 2026, as a full-day event. The detailed schedule will be released in early summer.

Attendees may purchase tickets for an individual awards premiere, each showcasing finalists from a single award category, or opt for an All-Access Pass.

Individual tickets include admission to one lecture, while the All-Access Pass provides entry to all festival events, including screenings and lectures.

Tickets will be available for purchase beginning in May.

Purchase ticket here

Creating room for nuance in a landscape addicted to hype
Privileging intention over automation
What to Expect

A curated cinematic experience built around collections of short films created with artificial intelligence tools. Rather than single screenings, audiences will purchase tickets to thoughtfully programmed blocks of shorts — each running approximately 90 to 120 minutes — designed to explore a central theme, aesthetic, or question emerging from the intersection of cinema and machine intelligence.

Each program extends beyond the screen. Filmmakers, technologists, artists, and critics will join for live conversations, talks, and panel discussions that examine not just how AI is being used as a tool, but how it is reshaping authorship, collaboration, storytelling, labor, and imagination itself.

This is not a tech demo. It is a film festival grounded in craft, experimentation, and serious artistic inquiry.

❋ The Films

Curated collections of AI-enabled short films that push narrative, visual language, and authorship into new cinematic territory

❋ The Conversations

Post-screening talks and panel discussions centering how artists are working with AI — creatively, critically, and ethically

❋ The Makers

Direct engagement with filmmakers and creative technologists redefining what authorship means in the age of machine collaboration

❋ The Questions

A space for rigorous inquiry into how artificial intelligence is reshaping storytelling, labor, aesthetics, and cultural power

Centering artists, not algorithms.