Une nuit de cinéma · Montréal

Montreal AI Indie Festival

Intelligence. Emotion. Cinema.

September 3 · Doors 5:00 PM · Dragon Jam Music Rehearsal · 1088 Rue Clark, Montréal

Submit your film Step into the night
Festival poster. A half human, half machine face with a camera eye glows in neon magenta and blue above neoclassical statues and a domed skyline.

The Invitation

A city that feels everything in close-up

Montreal feels everything in close-up. After dark the marble turns violet, the angels above the old facades hold the neon like they have been waiting a whole century for it, and the dome on the hill glows the colour of a heartbeat. This is the city where the Montreal AI Indie Festival lights its lamp. For one night, the third of September, inside Dragon Jam on Rue Clark, we turn the room low and electric and put young, fearless, feeling cinema on the screen.

We love films made with intelligence and ached over with the heart. We love a face in the rain scored to a song that is far too big for the room. We love the storyteller who refuses to be quiet about who they are.

A machine can hold the camera. A soul is still the thing looking through it.

That is the cinema we are here for, intimate and operatic in the same breath, made by people who grew up loving movies and decided to make their own.

The Night

The light goes pink and impossible

Doors open at five. Strangers settle into a single held breath, and for a few hours Rue Clark belongs entirely to the dreamers.

You sit close. You hear the whole room react around you. You watch films that were impossible a year ago and feel them like they were always meant to exist. Somewhere between the first frame and the last, Montreal does the thing it does best. It makes you fall in love.

For Everyone Who Applies

Every frame is watched like it carries a life inside it

When you submit, you step into a room of people who take young cinema seriously. Every eligible film is watched in full, by human eyes, with the lights off and the sound up. Nothing gets skimmed. Nothing gets lost.

Filmmakers chosen for the program receive

  • Official Selection

    Official Selection status and festival laurels for your posters, reels, and pages.

  • The Program

    Your film placed in the printed and on-screen program of the night.

  • Two Invitations

    Two invitations to the September 3 screening at Dragon Jam.

  • Your Premiere Moment

    Your film in front of a live Montreal audience, your name on the wall and on the screen.

  • The Photo Story

    A portrait on the night and a place in the festival's photo story.

You leave with proof that your work played to a real room, in a real city, on a real night.

For Everyone Who Wins

The last scene of a film you never want to end

The winners' experience is built to feel exactly like that.

  1. You are called to the front as the room rises. The applause is close and warm and yours.

  2. You receive the festival award in hand, a marble angel haloed in violet light, cast and finished for this edition alone.

  3. A winner's spotlight. Your film featured again to the festival audience, a filmed interview, and a press feature carried across our channels and to our partners.

  4. Introductions into Montreal's indie film community. The programmers, scorers, editors, and collaborators standing in the room with you.

  5. A lasting place in the festival family, with priority consideration for future editions and partner screenings across the circuit.

  6. And the memory that stays longer than any of it. A city on its feet for something you made.

The AI Awards

Ten honours, each named for a Montreal night

  • The AI Marble Angel

    Best Film

    For the film that holds the whole night in its hands.

  • The AI Violet Hour

    Best Director

    For the vision that turns a whole room the colour of dusk.

  • The AI Confession

    Best Screenplay

    For the words brave enough to say everything out loud.

  • The AI Electric Muse

    Best AI Film

    For cinema dreamed in a new light, alive with feeling.

  • The AI Neon Halo

    Best Cinematography

    For images that keep glowing long after the screen goes dark.

  • The AI Heartbeat

    Best Editing

    For the cut that keeps perfect time with the pulse of the room.

  • The AI Anthem

    Best Sound and Score

    For the song that is far too big for the room, played anyway.

  • The AI Enfant

    Best Emerging Filmmaker

    For the young voice arriving with the whole future in its pocket.

  • The AI Room

    Audience Award

    For the film the whole room carries home in its chest.

  • The AI Golden Fleur-de-Lis

    Grand Prize of the Festival

    The highest honour of the night, given to the work that brings Montreal to its feet.

Short films from every country, from every kind of maker. Films born from AI, raised in hybrid workflows, or shot with a camera and bare hands are all welcome on this screen. We watch for intelligence, for emotion, and for the nerve to feel out loud. Bring us the work that keeps you up at night.

Submit your film

Rules of the Floor

Nine rules, written with love

  1. Films from every country are welcome.
  2. AI-generated, AI-assisted, hybrid, and traditionally made films are judged together, with equal love.
  3. Maximum runtime is 40 minutes.
  4. Films completed after January 1, 2024 are eligible.
  5. Non-English films should carry English or French subtitles.
  6. Multiple submissions are welcome.
  7. You keep every right to your work, always.
  8. Selected films may screen at the festival and appear in our promotional story.
  9. Jury decisions are final, and made by people who watched with their whole attention.

The Evening

Come to Rue Clark

Date
September 3
Doors
5:00 PM
Venue
Dragon Jam Music Rehearsal
Address
1088 Rue Clark, Montréal, QC H2Z 1C1, CA

Submit your film. Then come and feel it with us, in the violet light, on the loudest, softest night of the Montreal summer.

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Contact

Write to us

Every message is read by a person who loves this festival. Submissions, partnerships, press, and love letters all land here.

inquiry@montrealaiffestival.com

Your mail app will open with the message ready to send. You can always write directly to inquiry@montrealaiffestival.com.