TBWA's DISRUPT AI Film Festival Announces Winners

Australia’s first DISRUPT AI Film Festival (DAIFF), held at ACMI in Melbourne, has announced its inaugural gen AI film winners and will release the country’s first dataset capturing how Australian creators are working with generative AI today.

Held during Australia’s AI Week 2025, DAIFF contributes to the country’s wider effort to build practical AI capability across creativity, culture, and technology.

Australia’s first dedicated gen AI film festival, DAIFF, was created to fill a clear gap: Australia had rising interest and experimentation, but no national mechanism to see the work, interrogate the tools, or connect talent with industry. The ambition was simple and pointed: move the conversation on creative AI from “we think” to “we know”, using evidence rather than opinion.

In its first year, the festival received 371 films, with 38 shortlisted, representing 67 hours of AI-generated storytelling, almost the same length of all eight series of Game of Thrones.

Early analysis of this dataset reveals how Australian creators are working with gen AI today, signals, which demonstrate gen AI filmmaking is not an automated output; it is iterative, labour‑intensive, and driven by human judgement.

DAIFF is supported by sponsorship from TBWA, Google, Leonardo.AI, BMW, and Holding Redlich, with support from RMIT University, Swinburne University of Technology, AFTRS, and DAIC. The festival is deliberately Australian-built and Australian-led, featuring Australian creators.

It also establishes a visible talent pipeline: through partnerships with RMIT, Swinburne, and Leonardo.ai, which gave every participating student 5,000 tool credits and dedicated education in human creativity and AI craft. Shortlisted films complied with Screen Australia guidelines and were reviewed by lawyers for copyright and IP, providing a legal and ethical framework from the outset.

Kimberlee Wells, CEO of TBWA Australia, said, “DAIFF is Disruption in action. We built this festival to give our talent, our industry, and our clients a national advantage, real capability, real insight, and a clearer path to growth. This is how Australia competes: by backing creativity, setting our own standards, and building the infrastructure others haven’t.”

DAIFF co-founder and TBWA chief AI and innovation officer Lucio Ribeiro, said,
“DAIFF exists because the industry needed a way to separate noise from reality. This dataset moves us from ‘we think’ to ‘we know’. By bringing together platforms, universities, legal partners, and industry, we’ve created the first shared foundation for gen AI storytelling in Australia.

"It gives us a baseline to deepen the work with our academic partners and build the research Australia needs for what comes next.”

Congratulations to all our entrants and our winners.

2025 DAIFF WINNERS

• Grand Prix: Black Box — Director: Peter Majarich

• Best Short Film: Lens Wide Open— Director: Bruce Hunt

• Best Long Form: Erase — Director: Ash “forevercoast” Phillips

• Best Student Film: Unhold — Director: Apoorva Tandon

Winners can be viewed here. DAIFF will also be heading to Sydney on December 2nd, 2025.