Runway AI Film Festival Finalists To Be Shown On IMAX Screens Nationwide
AI films, often known for their surreal, mind-bending visuals, are bringing their wild energy to the big screen — in IMAX.
As the result of a partnership between IMAX and Runway, finalists from the AI-video startup's 2025 AI Film Festival will get showings at 10 locations across the U.S. next month — Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Screenings will take place between August 17 and August 20, with four at each location, for a total of 40.
Making it to IMAX marks a milestone, a kind of big-leagues debut for AI-generated films.
'The IMAX Experience has typically been reserved for the world's most accomplished and visionary filmmakers,' said Jonathan Fischer, chief content officer at IMAX, said in a statement. 'We're excited to open our aperture and use our platform to experiment with a new kind of creator, as storytelling and technology converge in an entirely new way.'
The finalist films, which last between 2 and 10 minutes, will be available to watch online after the IMAX screenings.
AI Trippiness Meets IMAX Immersion
The 10 movies getting the IMAX treatment include Jailbird by filmmaker Andrew Salter. It tells the trippy story of a chicken whose life changes when it gets sent to a human prison, and IMAX's immersive visuals and sound will no doubt up the absurd ante. In One from Ricardo Villavicencio and Edward Saatchi, a crew of transhumans travels to a distant planet after Earth collapses, only to find their new home inhabited by lost souls who want their human bodies back.
'The quality, variety and storytelling of these films deserves a premium viewing experience,' said Cristóbal Valenzuela, co-founder and CEO of Runway.
Runway makes a tool that generates videos from text, images or video clips. This year marks its third annual AI film festival, an event it calls a celebration of art and artists embracing new and emerging AI techniques for filmmaking.
Judges for 2025 included Bruce Markoe, head of post-production and image capture at IMAX; Kia Brooks, deputy director of the Gotham Film and Media Institute; Joel Kuwahara, an Emmy-winning producer; and Daniel Revkoe, a visual effects artist at Lionsgate. The jurors selected finalists from 6,000 submissions, double the number from last year.
The festival and other celebrations of AI-generated art come as artists continue to grapple with the impact of generative AI tools on their work, and on the very nature of creativity. Some artists marvel at AI's potential to steer them in weird and wonderful directions. Others fear it will steal their work to train datasets, or even render them obsolete.
When I spoke with Runway's Valenzuela last year, he framed AI as a collaborator, not a human replacement.
'Sometimes we hold AI to some sort of impossible set of standards where we ask systems to do entire jokes, entire shows, entire movies or entire songs themselves, and really, that's never been the point,' he said. 'You can choose which parts you're going to incorporate. It's up to you as an artist how you want to best utilize it.'
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