Lumara Film Festival Announces Finalists for Inaugural AI Film Festival

Presented by MoonPay and Venice, the inaugural Lumara Film Festival festival received more than 700 submissions from filmmakers worldwide and today reveals six finalists competing for the Grand Prize and Jury Selection, with winners announced live at the World Premiere at the Roxy Hotel Cinema in New York on October 26. The evening will also feature an exclusive extended prologue of jury member and AI filmmaker Gossip Goblin's new film "Gods Don't Give Gifts.", the first-ever AI film slated for a wide theatrical release at the end of this year.

NEW YORK, Oct. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Lumara Film Festival, an independent film festival for the artists defining a new era of filmmaking, presented by MoonPay and Venice, has announced the six finalists competing for its Grand Prize and Jury Selection awards and the 16 nominees for its five category awards.

Lumara was created to find and celebrate the films coming out of a transformative moment for cinema. AI has given filmmakers a new set of tools and a new creative language that opens the door to opportunities otherwise unavailable to many. Submissions were open from July 24 to September 15 and drew more than 700 films. Entry was free and open worldwide, and filmmakers could use any AI filmmaking platform available.

Films were evaluated by a jury of the world's leading AI filmmakers and internet-culture figures including Voidstomper, Gossip Goblin, Chris White (executive producer, A24's "Backrooms"), JBoogxCreative, Heavy Pulp, SÜNDERMANN, BLVCKL!GHT, Ansem and FaZe Banks. Films were judged on the strength of the idea, the quality of the storytelling, and how well the filmmaker used AI.

The six finalists will now move into competition for the Grand Prize of $32,000 and 3.2 million Venice AI credits and the Jury Selection award of $20,000 and 2 million Venice AI credits.

The finalists are:

• "Black Thunder" (Ryan Lightbourn)
• "Candy" (Jiaze Li)
• "Gabriel" (T Zhang)
• "Killabears – The Broadcast" (Mikael Tyrsen)
• "Living with a Merman" (Chris Capel)
• "Mianmian" (Yingjie Chen)

This year's categories and their nominees include:

• Terminal Award (best experimental film), $12,000 and 1.2 million Venice AI credits
  • "REVIVER" (Aleksey Dor)
  • "Stories My Great Great Great Grandmother Told Me" (Philippe Noguchi)
  • "THE LAST TRIBE" (Stephane Benini)
• Serenissima Award (best film made with Venice), $12,000 and 1.2 million Venice AI credits
  • "Black Thunder" (Ryan Lightbourn)
  • "Er Loop" (Marco Magario)
  • "Never Forget" (Allan Ecax)
• Get Shorty Award (best film under two minutes), $8,000 and 800,000 Venice AI credits
  • "Ato de [Later]" (Luke Mazey)
  • "COMPULSION" (Gyuseon Lee)
  • "Do Not Disturb" (Adrian Daniel Botnariu)
  • "Summer Afternoon, July 1994" (Charlie Park)
• Mouse Award (best film for children or young adults), $8,000 and 800,000 Venice AI credits
  • "Far away home" (Siping Song)
  • "FIX" (Eunha Lee, Sora Lee and Hakhoon Lee)
  • "Roraima" (Ishan Devare Modi)
• Rekt Award (best satire, comedy or musical about finance, markets or crypto), $8,000 and 800,000 Venice AI credits
  • "Great Pepe Wars" (Aiden Guo)
  • "JUST SAY SOLANA" (Yassine Le Gall)
  • "ROLL EVERYTHING" (Ashanth Phillips)

The winner of each category award will be announced on the Venice and MoonPay channels.

The finalists will be screened in full at the inaugural Lumara screening and awards night taking place on October 26 at the Roxy Hotel Cinema in New York City, with winners announced at the event.

The evening will also include screenings of the category-winning films, and new work previews from members of the jury, including an exclusive an exclusive extended prologue of Gossip Goblin's new film God's Don't Give Gifts, the first AI film slated for a wide theatrical release at the end of this year.

The winning films will premiere online on X and YouTube on October 27.

About MoonPay
MoonPay is a global financial technology company that provides infrastructure for moving value across traditional and digital financial systems. Founded in 2019, MoonPay serves more than 35 million customers in 180 countries and more than 1500 enterprise clients across crypto and fintech. Its products support payments, trading, commerce, stablecoin infrastructure and other services that connect conventional payment networks with blockchain-based financial rails. MoonPay maintains regulatory licenses and authorizations in multiple jurisdictions, including the United States and European Union. For more information, visit www.moonpay.com.

About Venice
Venice is a privacy-first AI platform built for unlimited creative freedom. It gives filmmakers unrestricted access to the world's leading video, image and audio models in one private workspace, alongside frontier text and code models, without censorship and without surveillance. Trusted by 5 million users, Venice runs leading video models including Seedance 2.5, image models from OpenAI, Google and xAI, and voice and music generation, so a filmmaker can make the story exactly as they envision it, rather than the one a platform allows. Venice is accessible through its app and API. Learn more at venice.ai.

Media Contacts
MoonPay
[email protected]

Venice
[email protected]

Press passes available upon request.

SOURCE MoonPay