Human vs. AI Film Premiere
Date: September 26, 2026
Time: 11AM, 1PM, 3PM, and 5PM
Format: Short Films
Location:
Delancey Street Screening Room
San Francisco, California USA
One of San Francisco's most unique movie events this year: A film premiere where human directors and generative AI face the exact same creative challenge, and you won’t know who made each film until the reveal. Watch the stories, feel the emotions, and decide for yourself whether human artistry or AI moves you more.
Featuring nominated films, special selections, and standout works from the 2026 Human vs. AI Film Festival. The premiere is divided into four screening sessions, each focused on a different emotional contrast: Joy & Sorrow, Intensity & Serenity, Love & Hate, and Desire & Disgust. You can attend one session or choose a special package for all four screenings.
Limited Free Tickets Available
In line with our mission to explore the future of cinema, a limited number of free unreserved tickets are available to all. Admission is strictly first-come, first-seated, but a free ticket does not guarantee entry once capacity is reached. Please arrive early to secure your seat and check individual screenings for availability.
Joy & Sorrow
A journey through the emotions that lift us up and the experiences that bring us down
The Joy & Sorrow Screening Session features short films that explore cinema’s ability to awaken happiness, hope, grief, and emotional release. Traditional filmmakers and generative AI creators take on the same emotional challenge, each using their own approach to see which stories can move audiences most deeply.
Following the screening, join director Sean Havey for a special Q&A about the making of We Still Love Here. Told through the eyes of devoted fans, this short documentary captures the Oakland A’s final home game and reflects on the Coliseum as a refuge where Oakland’s diverse community came together to celebrate baseball, belonging, and “The Town.”
Date: September 26, 2026
Time: 11 AM
Length: ~ 100 Min (8 films)
Format: Short Films
Location:
Delancey Street Screening Room
600 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94107
Recommended for ages 13+.
Contains themes of grief, death, poverty, and some disturbing or violent imagery. Parental guidance is advised.
Film | Title | Emotion | Runtime | Synopsis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
BFF (Best Friend Forever) | Sorrow | 7:34 | After her mother’s funeral, a woman returns to her childhood home and finds recordings hidden inside a pair of glasses. They reveal a shocking truth about herself and Marie, her lifelong robot companion. In a near future where humanoids blend into daily life, Best Friend Forever explores how technology can offer warmth while serving human control. As comfort and protection begin to shape choices and relationships, the film asks when love becomes manipulation and intimacy turns into violence. | |
Mr. Rossi | Joy | 5:50 | Mr. Rossi, a Catholic priest, wakes up in a sterile waiting room following his passing. Seated alongside a diverse panel of religious figures, a rabbi, a Buddhist monk, and an imam, he is eventually ushered into the "Post-Organic Data Processing Unit." There, an eccentric receptionist reveals a brutal truth: reality is nothing more than a computer simulation, a "Matrix" being glitched by Rossi’s own sins and acts of redemption. Condemned to an eternal cycle of reboots due to his human contradictions, Rossi discovers that eternity is not spiritual, but software-based. | |
Peking Opera Paradise | Joy | 4:02 | What if the world itself were a stage? Drawing on figures from traditional Chinese opera, Peking Opera Paradise brings Judge Bao, Guan Yu, Madam White Snake, and Wu Dalang into modern society. Through a child’s eyes, this surreal, darkly comic fable explores power, desire, morality, and ambition. Everyone performs a role, but no one knows whether they are a hero, villain, fool, dreamer, or lost soul. The film turns performance into a mirror of modern life. | |
Sohail ki Pili Chaddi (सोहेल की पीली चड्डी) | Joy | 10:59 | Sohel is a child who should be in school but instead sells water to fish vendors to support his family. Surrounded by yellow belongings that symbolize his hopes, he dreams of buying yellow underwear. After saving enough, he visits a shop but is ignored because of his poverty and ends up with a pair that is too large. Rather than keep it, he sells it, gives half the money to his mother, and uses the rest for food. Despite his disappointment, Sohel holds onto the hope that one day his mother will buy him the yellow underwear he longs for. | |
The Roof | Sorrow | 5:30 | On a blazing summer noon in 1939 Istanbul, a roof worker watches from above as his young son is beaten and cut open on the white marble of a rich man's doorstep over five kuruş — and the distance between the roof and the street turns out to be the whole distance between the poor and the powerful. | |
We Still Love Here | Sorrow | 14:31 | “We Still Love Here” is a short documentary told through the eyes of die-hard fans, capturing the final home game of the Oakland A’s in intimate detail. As Oakland bids farewell to its last pro team, the film reflects on the Coliseum as a refuge—a place where the city’s diverse community came together to celebrate baseball, belonging, and “The Town” itself. | |
Baytora | Joy | 13:51 | “Baytora” is a short film, the story of which takes place in Gaza. During the days of the ceasefire, a student is tasked with building the house of his dreams with the materials he has around him and bringing it to school. | |
Inmaculada | Sorrow | 12:20 | In a small town where it's customary to draw lots among the parishioners to choose the patron saint's chapel, Inmaculada is selected to care for and decorate it. What seems like an honor turns into an absurd and clandestine odyssey when the image mysteriously disappears from her home. |
Intensity & Serenity
A journey into the forces that erupt within us and the stillness that allows us to regain control
The Intensity & Serenity Screening Session features short films shaped by emotional rage and restraint. Traditional filmmakers and generative AI producers explore these opposing emotional extremes, while you, the audience, decide which approach makes you feel the intensity, experience the serenity, and ultimately moves you more.
Date: September 26, 2026
Time: 1 PM
Length: ~ 100 Min (9 films)
Location:
Delancey Street Screening Room
600 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94107
Recommended for ages 13+.
Contains mature themes, war-related imagery, death, psychological distress, and some frightening or disturbing content.
Film | Title | Emotion | Runtime | Synopsis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
A Magical Moment (Un Moment Màgic) | Intensity | 5:00 | "If you could cast a spell, what would it be?". A couple argues about this fun question, seemingly unaware of the dark powers that they have awaken. | |
An unseen energy devours me endlessly | Intensity | 18:00 | In dystopian Argentina, a large enterprise launches to the market a hunger-remover device, the CHIP. In the middle of an economic crisis, Eliseo, a young man living in La Plata, decides to get the CHIP implanted, without hearing out to the activist opposing arguments and jeopardising not only his health but also his free will. | |
Capacity | Intensity | 8:07 | In a near-future world where artificial intelligence has pushed deep into the borders of human consciousness, a revolutionary medical procedure emerges: a treatment that allows a person enter their own mind, locate traumatic memories and erase them. The film follows a young soldier sent to fight in a hopeless war against a monstrous force. It is a story about the collision between technology and the human soul, between the promise of erasing suffering and the fear of losing ourselves. A journey into the depths of the mind where it becomes clear that the memories that hurt us most may also be the ones that keep us whole. | |
Developed | Intensity | 6:56 | For months, local TV reporter Park Seongho, 28, has received reports of strange deaths in a remote mountain village. Rumor says anyone photographed there dies exactly as shown in the developed image. Convinced the story could revive his stagnant career, he drives into the mountains to uncover the truth. Yet as he nears the village, he thinks less about the victims than about how the grotesque mystery might rescue him from obscurity and return him to the spotlight. | |
EMMA | Serenity | 7:48 | Eya spends an entire night searching for Emma: through the crush of a hardcore techno festival, through strobe and sweat and noise, three relentless minutes on the edge of panic. Then she screams, and everything stops. What follows is daylight. A faceless statue. A cave of still water. A childhood. The film opens out into quiet, and the girl who spent all night fighting the crowd finally stops fighting at all. A dialogue-free film in two movements, fury and grace, about the noise we make to avoid being alone, and the calm waiting on the other side of letting go. | |
NOTHING | Serenity | 5:15 | A woman torn between domestic life and work is granted the power to change the world by the Universe. But whatever she changes is enacted literally — for all of humanity — and turns into a catastrophe. Can she find the one change that will actually make the world better? | |
The Way You Sea Me (A Menina e o Mar) | Serenity | 18:18 | The film tells the story of a brief encounter between two kids who have very different ways of seeing the world around them. And the sea, who embraces this moment. The boy, afraid of what the sea might hold for him, and the girl, used to seeing poetry everywhere around her, learn together that in order to enjoy life, all you need to do is give into your senses. Through this life-changing encounter they both learn to overcome their fears and enjoy their world around them. | |
All Names Begin with M (Todos los nombres empiezan con M) | Serenity | 18:56 | Maya, a 40-year-old trans woman, returns to her hometown to visit her mother suffering from Alzheimer's. As locals seeks a lost Virgin, a walk between them opens a space for mutual recognition. | |
Sweet Fruit | Intensity | 10:00 | A boy joins his father on a coming-of-age hunt. When the father dies saving the chief's son, the boy finds no answers in tradition, and must walk this path alone, learn what it means to grow up, and find a new way to survive. |
Love & Hate
A journey through the bonds that unite us and the wounds that divide us
The Love & Hate Screening Session features short films with cinema’s power to create closeness, affection, empathy, discomfort, and emotional resistance. Traditional filmmakers and generative AI producers take on the extremes of love and hate, from intimacy, devotion, and belonging to betrayal, prejudice, fear, and rejection, each seeking to see who can make audiences feel these opposing emotions more powerfully.
Date: September 26, 2026
Time: 3 PM
Length: ~ 100 Min (8 films)
Location:
Delancey Street Screening Room
600 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94107
Recommended for ages 13+
Contains mature themes including loneliness, alcohol dependency, emotional distress, and relationship conflict.
Film | Title | Emotion | Runtime | Synopsis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
After School Ring (종소리가 울리고) | Hate | 19:30 | Elementary school first-year teacher Jung Soo-yeon gets trapped on the school rooftop due to her students' excessive pranks and spends an unforgettable day in isolation. | |
BENCH | Love | 28:20 | Henry, an elderly man who spends his days alone on a park bench, befriends a boy named Leo after repairing his bicycle. Determined to keep his promise to run with Leo at the school sports day, Henry secretly trains but collapses from exhaustion. Guilty, Leo prepares to abandon their plan until Henry arrives for the race. When Henry falls behind, Leo turns back, takes his hand, and crosses the finish line with him. They finish last, completing the slowest yet warmest race of all. | |
Compromises | Hate | 6:57 | When an engagement shoot goes awry, a Fiancé is faced with the sacrifices of marriage. | |
Down The Hatch (До дна!) | Love | 7:58 | When a tired and troubled mother disappears inside a wine bottle, her naive daughter dives in to bring her home. She is too young to understand, but too stubborn to give up. How do you rescue someone who doesn't want to be saved? | |
Let's Play Ball! (带你去玩球！) | Love | 8:20 | A dog thinks a "ball" can bring happiness to its owner. Therefore, when the owner sadly leaves home this time, it decides to take the ball and go "rescue" them. | |
MONICA (მონიკა) | Love | 13:55 | A story about loneliness and love. Kako lives alone in an abandoned house, where he fixes dilapidated mannequins and sells them to various clothing stores. Kako finds hard to build relationships with people. One day, he accidentally finds a clothing store, where his repaired mannequin (female) is on display. Kako falls in love with the mannequin. | |
RECALL | Hate | 3:50 | In a perfect world, suffering is the ultimate luxury. | |
The Pod | Hate | 10:16 | The Pod imagines a future where human value is reduced to data validation and algorithmic authority. Its emotional core remains deeply human, exploring fear, doubt, identity, memory, and the need to be recognized. The protagonist fights not technology, but invisibility and the terror of being erased by a system that no longer sees him as a person. By centering vulnerability within an environment ruled by AI, the film argues that dignity, empathy, and agency cannot be quantified. What makes us human is precisely what cannot be measured. |
Desire & Disgust
A journey through the forces that draw us closer and the instincts that drive us away
The Desire & Disgust Screening Session features short films exploring cinema’s power to awaken longing, attraction, curiosity, temptation, discomfort, fear, and repulsion. Traditional filmmakers and generative AI producers take on these emotional opposites, each trying to pull audiences closer through desire or push them away through disgust, leaving viewers to decide which side creates the more powerful reaction.
Date: September 26, 2026
Time: 5 PM
Length: ~ 100 Min (8 films)
Location:
Delancey Street Screening Room
600 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94107
MATURE AUDIENCES — RECOMMENDED 17+
This screening contains mature sexual themes, references to sexual abuse, violence, blood, horror, and disturbing imagery. Viewer discretion is advised.
Film | Title | Emotion | Runtime | Synopsis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
For Better or For Worse | Disgust | 3:09 | A prisoner serving a long sentence in solitary confinement forms an unexpected emotional bond within the walls of his cell. As isolation takes its toll, the attachment grows increasingly significant, blurring the lines between reality, companionship, and the fundamental human need for connection until he hears the one word he has been waiting for. | |
Miserere Tui | Desire | 7:16 | At an old Catholic boarding school in Europe, choirboy Julian worships and resents Mikael, the gifted soloist. He discovers that Mikael’s celestial voice comes from a golden moth kept in a forbidden crypt. Hungry for the same power, Julian cuts his finger, spills his blood, and swallows the moth whole. Soon, he takes the stage as soloist, but something begins moving inside his throat. As Julian panics, Mikael watches calmly, as if he always knew. Miserere Tui means Have mercy on you, yet the film grants mercy to no one. | |
PRINCE's SWEET MARRIAGE | Desire | 4:03 | In a whimsical kingdom made entirely of sweets, people have heads crafted from whipped cream, chocolate, fruit, macarons, and other treats. Romantic compatibility depends on both appearance and how well a couple’s flavors complement each other. On the night of a grand ball to select the bride of Prince Chocolat Blanc, the kingdom’s white chocolate heir, six princesses gather in a private salon. Their meeting becomes a sugary, absurd, and increasingly vicious contest of vanity, rivalry, and ambition as each fights to prove she is his perfect match. | |
Restrain Desires (抑欲) | Desire | 18:45 | Yang Guang, an unemployed documentary filmmaker, follows the enigmatic Wang Kai in an attempt to create an intriguing documentary. Wang Kai leads Yang Guang to his "special shop," where a meticulously arranged silicone doll is displayed. Behind Wang Kai's obsession with the doll lies a secret that seems to be hidden from the world, sparking Yang Guang's desire to create a groundbreaking work. Subsequently, Wang Kai takes Yang Guang to his home, but little does Yang Guang know that he is being led into an unimaginable "home." Gradually, Yang Guang's inner world also begins to undergo subtle changes. | |
Roses and Champagne (Rosas y Champagne) | Disgust | 14:00 | A predator and sexual abuser of women hides behind the facade of a businessman and family man. He arranges meetings with his victims using fake profiles on dating apps. What he doesn't know is that his next date will find a monster even worse than him. | |
The thing I called mom | Disgust | 5:00 | The Thing I Called Mom is a fantasy horror film about the bond between love and loss, and how far someone will go to restore the person they cherish most. Its protagonist is driven not by greed or revenge, but by love, which makes the story terrifying. The monster is not the villain, but the consequence of refusing to accept irreversible loss. It embodies grief pulling someone back, only to find that what returns is no longer whole. The film asks: If the person you loved most returned as someone different, would you still call her Mom? | |
Verdulera (Greengrocer) | Desire | 5:13 | jose is a clerk at a neighborhood greengrocer in la rondilla, valladolid, who, in search of his soulmate, must confront some of his inner ghosts when juan, a middle-aged, polyamorous man, ghosts him. | |
ServeME (sers-MOI) | Disgust | 15:00 | The revolution comes through the world's waiters, and this short film demonstrates this in the face of the bourgeois fetish of being waited on. |
All-Access Reserved Pass
Experience all 4 premiere screenings plus exclusive tech talks and seminars on the latest in generative AI and traditional filmmaking, with reserved seating in the best available section and a complimentary Sparknify luggage strap. Separate registration is required for each screening session.
Best Value
Human vs AI All-Access Reserved Pass
50
Admission to all 4 Human vs. AI Film Premiere screenings, seating in the best available reserved section with a complimentary Sparknify luggage strap. Register each screening separately.
Valid for one month
Admission to All 4 Screening Sessions
Talks and Seminars
Sparknify Luggage Strap
Reserved Section
Human or AI?
The short films you will see are either human-produced or an AI-generated. But you will not be told until the end of the film.
Human-Produced Short Films
As AI reshapes film production, it raises existential questions for both the industry and humanity. More than ever, it is crucial to celebrate the unique storytelling, emotion, and creativity that define us as human. Similar to films submitted to conventional film festival, these works demonstrate cinematic craft and originality, but with a deeper purpose as we seek visionary creators dedicated to safeguarding humanity and shaping a flourishing future for the industry.
AI-Generated Short Films
AI-generated films showcase the innovation of AI technology, transforming storytelling and reshaping creativity. We celebrate this technological progress and seek visionary creators who excel in using these tools to craft narratives that not only pass the Turing Test, but also capture the essence of humanity. These films reveal how intelligent machines can help us see human emotion, imagination, and identity in bold, unexpected, and profound ways.
Delancey Street Screening Room
The nominated films will be screened at San Francisco’s renowned Delancey Street Screening Room, located within the Delancey Street Foundation’s landmark Embarcadero complex, a symbol of transformation built in part by residents rebuilding their lives through work, education, and community. It is a fitting home for the Human vs. AI Film Festival, a celebration of emotion, humanity, reinvention, and the future of storytelling. Alongside the premieres, the event will feature discussions on the future of cinematography, presentations from cutting edge tech startups, networking, and an awards ceremony honoring the 2026 Sparknify Humanity Award and emotion category winners.
The 2026 Sparknify Humanity Award went to Down The Hatch, directed by Alexandra Lukina of the United States, for its moving portrayal of love and devotion. Gabriel Mellin’s Brazilian film The Way You Sea Me received the Best Cinema Award, while South Korean director Mooshin Rhee’s BENCH was named Best AI-Generated Film.
How were the films selected?
Over 3,000 films were submitted to the 2026 Sparknify Human vs. AI Film Festival. Entries first undergo technical review, followed by separate evaluations from the Grand Jury of Cinema for traditional films and the Grand Jury of AI Innovation for AI generated films. Finalists then advance to a blind screening by 200+ film school professors worldwide in the Grand Jury of Academia, where human and AI films are judged side by side on cinematic quality and emotional impact. Category winners are determined by vote, with the highest rated film receiving the festival’s top honor, the Sparknify Humanity Award.
Serving as an essential pillar of the Sparknify Human vs. AI Film Festival, the Grand Jury of Cinema brings together a distinguished panel of film critics, festival programmers, experienced judges, directors, and established film industry leaders. Tasked exclusively with evaluating short films produced through traditional filmmaking methods, this jury scrutinizes narrative depth, visual craft, direction, sound design, and emotional resonance. Their critical discernment directly determines the recipient of the Best Picture Award.
The Grand Jury of AI Innovation is a central pillar of the Sparknify Human vs. AI Film Festival, bringing together leading generative AI specialists, technology pioneers, and machine learning researchers. The jury evaluates AI generated short films across the festival’s emotional categories, assessing innovation, storytelling, cinematic execution, and emotional impact, and ultimately elects the recipient of the Best Generative AI Award.
The Grand Jury of Academia is a central pillar of the Sparknify Human vs. AI Film Festival, bringing together leading scholars, researchers, and faculty in film, technology, and human perception. Through blind evaluation of nominated human and AI films across eight emotional categories, the jury assesses cinematic quality and emotional impact, selects category winners, and ultimately elects the recipient of the festival’s highest honor, the Sparknify Humanity Award.
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Partner With the Future of Cinema
The 2026 Human vs. AI Film Premiere is more than a screening but a live exploration of how emotion, intelligence, and creativity intersect. We invite forward-thinking brands, studios, research labs, and technology companies to join us as sponsors and partners in shaping this conversation. Sponsorships provide curated exposure, experiential activation opportunities, and direct connection with creators and thought leaders defining the next era of film.