CLOWD • LHC

CLOWD, an international festival dedicated to films created with artificial intelligence, opened registrations on May 29 for its inaugural edition scheduled for October 7 and 8, 2026, in Los Angeles. Spearheaded by Curt Doty through the RealmIQ platform, the event positions itself as an annual competition and community dedicated to cinema where human vision meets machine, with a simple rule: at least 75% of each film must be produced using AI tools. The event advocates a "platform agnostic" approach, open to Runway, Kling, Veo, Adobe Firefly, or any other tool, and guarantees creators full ownership of their works, without model training on submitted content. The competition is organized into six categories: Fantasy, Music Video, Utopia, and Short Narratives (2 to 11 minutes), Long Form Commercials (2 to 4 minutes, centered around a fictional brand named Agua Fria), and a Student Competition reserved for students (1 minute). Each participant may submit up to ten films across five categories. The prize pool totals nearly $10,000 in cash, distributed across nine awards. All winners also receive a one-year ElevenLabs Creator subscription and twelve months of access to Sinima.ai, with both finalists and winners benefiting from one year of Rad TV Creator+. The jury comprises sixteen professionals, including Scott Ross, Jeff Boortz (founder of Human-AI Innovation Commons), Jo Wallace, B. Earl, Gabe Michael, Ulrike Kerber, Thomas Camarda, Nancy Hamilton, Joshua Otten, Maïm Garnier, Marion Michele, Margarida Barreto, Roxanne Ducharme, Marcus Grip, Jagger Waters, and Lisa Trublet de Nermont. Finalists will also undergo a popular vote on Rad TV. Regarding the schedule, the early bird deadline is set for June 29, and the regular and student deadline for August 19. Finalists will be announced on September 2, final judging will take place on September 16, and the student winner will be revealed on September 18. The ceremony will be held at the Alex Theatre, a historic venue in the Los Angeles area, followed by a national tour that will extend the screening of the award-winning films in other cities for one year.