The inaugural "AI Film Festival", organized by the Division of Arts and Machine Creativity at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), recently concluded on April 19, 2025 with great success. The festival attracted over 700 fully AI-generated artworks from more than 80 countries and regions worldwide, with three outstanding pieces ultimately standing out and receiving multiple awards.

Among the winners, the Emmy-nominated storyteller Nik Kleverov received "Best Film Award" with his thought-provoking short Memory Maker, which depicts a post-war world where humans become subservient to machines, sparking deep reflection on human-machine relationships. Meanwhile, Jeff Synthesized, a seasoned AI filmmaker, won the "Pioneer Award" for his work Newton’s Cradle. Additionally, a young director YE Zhixiang’s film Getting Home, which focuses on a war veteran’s half-century journey home, not only earned the "Best Narrative Award" but also won the "Viewer’s Choice Award."

HKUST Provost Prof. Guo Yike, along with distinguished guests, attended the screening of the first 100% AI-focused film festival in Greater China to watch the shortlisted films and witness the potential of AI technology. One of the festival’s jury members, five-time Oscar winner Mr. Richard TAYLOR, known for his work on The Lord of the Rings delivered a video speech sharing his insights on the future of AI filmmaking.

Prior to the screening, HKUST also hosted an academic forum centered around four key themes: “AI Creative Products and Pipelines”, “AI Influence on Artists and the Film Industry”, “AI and A New Generation of Creators”, and “AI, Art, Creativity, and Ethics”, which attracted a diverse audience of nearly 600 academics, industry practitioners, and cinephiles. The forum featured esteemed speakers such as Mr. Brian CONNOR, an acclaimed American visual effects artist celebrated for winning the Oscar’s Best Visual Effects for Dune; Mr. Chris WILLIAMSON and Mr. Jacky ZHENG from Richard Taylor’s Weta Workshop; Ms. Peggy CHIAO, Taiwanese film scholar; Mr. Charles HEUNG, Hong Kong film producer; Mr. Jacky HEUNG, Hong Kong actor; Mr. Tony NGAI, Honorary Advisor of the Hong Kong Society of Cinematographers, who brings over 50 years of invaluable experience in Hong Kong’s film industry; and Prof. Maneesh AGRAWALA, Director of the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Stanford University. 

The AIFF is part of the three-day Computational Visual Media 2025 - an international forum hosted in Hong Kong for the first time by HKUST which aims at exchanging innovative research ideas and showcasing the application of different visual arts technologies.

Click here to view the three award-winning entries. 

Read the original article in Chinese: https://hkust.edu.hk/news/emmy-nominated-storyteller-wins-best-movie-hkust-ai-film-festival-chinese-only

News Coverage:

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科大辦首個100%AI技術創作的"AI電影節"
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