Open for entries

World A.I. Film Festival Africa — Abidjan

A regional WAIFF event organised with DUX Côte d’Ivoire and Studio Laffitte. Five competition tracks can lead to consideration for Road to Cannes; Abidjan selection does not automatically guarantee Cannes selection or travel.

Deadline31 December 2026, 23:59 Abidjan time (GMT, UTC+0)

FeeNo entry fee for any of the five competitions; production, tools, rights and travel costs are separate.

EligibilityRestricted regional call. Both rules PDFs list Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Benin, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Togo, Burkina Faso and Chad. The main…

Key restrictionNo general prior-publication ban was established. Already participating in another WAIFF edition is excluded, with historical/withdrawal scope…

Edition	2027 edition · 2026 call
Location	Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire / restricted regional eligibility
Deadline	31 December 2026, 23:59 Abidjan time (GMT, UTC+0) The rules give an exact GMT cutoff. The main page has an inconsistent weekday; the numeric date is retained. Closing ceremony: 5 February 2027 in Abidjan.
Fee	No entry fee for any of the five competitions; production, tools, rights and travel costs are separate.
Eligibility	Restricted regional call. Both rules PDFs list Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Benin, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Togo, Burkina Faso and Chad. The main page also mentions legal residents but names Nigeria instead of Niger, as does its current country selector. Confirm the discrepancy with the organiser. Minors need prior parental permission; organizer/involved-company employees and their families are excluded.
Runtime / category	AI Short Film 5–15 minutes; AI Vertical a single work under 3 minutes or 4–6 episodes each under 3 minutes, in 9:16; AI Documentary 15–90 minutes; Advertising and Music Video have no cap. Credit timing is unspecified.
AI policy	Substantial AI required. General fully AI-generated and hybrid eligibility has a music-video exception: MV must be hybrid, not entirely AI-generated, and the lead voice cannot be 100% AI-generated. A generic AI-workflow label does not establish those details.
Premiere / public release	No general prior-publication ban was established. Already participating in another WAIFF edition is excluded, with historical/withdrawal scope unclarified. Submission grants official full-film screening/streaming rights; it is not a confirmed requirement to publish a public full-film link yourself. Check other premiere commitments.
Disclosure	Production journal: main AI tools, stages, human creative role and relevant third-party resources/models and use permissions. MV additionally needs an AI-detection report; documentary simulations/reconstructions must be disclosed to viewers.
Rights / licence	Creators retain ownership. Submission grants worldwide, free, non-exclusive full-film screening and streaming rights for 36 months from submission. Associated promotional/archive materials may be used as long as necessary for festival history. Sale, paid distribution or other commercial exploitation needs a separate written agreement. Cannes opportunities and third-party deals are not guaranteed.
Source review	Partial source review 2026-10-25; full verification incomplete

Fee breakdown by category and stage

Article 3.2 states entry is free for every competition.

All five competition tracks · 2027 call	Free Deadline 2026-12-31. Article 3.2: no registration fee.

Free entry does not waive production, tools, permissions or personal travel costs.

Refunds: No entry fee to refund.

Fee details checked 2026-10-25. Confirm the live category, round and currency at checkout.

What to prepare

Original work produced in the previous twelve months. Films already participating in another WAIFF edition are ineligible; the historical/withdrawal boundary is not clarified.
Common initial materials: HD MP4/MOV, representative JPEG still, short presentation, production journal and director biography/CV. The journal records tools, AI stages, human contribution and relevant third-party resources and permissions.
Use the correct competition track and its runtime rule; the short-film track includes animation and documentary genres. Vertical has separate aspect ratio and episode limits.
Music Video: music plus visuals, no lyric-only or static-cover entries; substantial AI in both music and visuals, no wholly AI-generated work, no 100%-AI lead voice, and an AI-detection report.
Real-brand advertising needs permission; fictional advertising requires original creative brand/product development and is to be produced in 2026 through the closing date. The two rules PDFs differ slightly in wording; confirm the actual case.
Subtitles conflict: regional rules allow French/English or corresponding subtitles, with English for Road to Cannes; the main page says burned-in English subtitles for every work. Ask before submission.
The official regional entry redirects to the WAIFF main-site public form. It shows additional identity, Presentation PDF, two poster and portrait uploads; only static fields were checked. Supply identity documents only to the organiser, never Film Atlas.

Source review and remaining questions

Partial source review 2026-10-25; full verification incomplete.

Read both 2027 eleven-page rules PDFs, main and regional pages, the regional official-entry redirect and the public form HTML. No identity document, film or form was submitted; no server-side validation or AI-detection process was tested.

The Niger/Nigeria list discrepancy and accepted legal-residence evidence. An African theme or European student status does not establish regional eligibility.
The final applicable rule for burned-in English subtitles versus the regional French/English provision; English subtitles for Road to Cannes are separately confirmed.
Credit timing, vertical-series delivery, precise HD pixels/encoding/bitrate, subtitle delivery and a successful submission receipt. No entry was submitted.
Accepted AI-detection tools, report format/evidential standard and lead-voice percentage checks. Mainly AI-generated visuals do not establish a wholly AI-generated work, so a generic workflow answer cannot alone disqualify a music video.
The reference date for the twelve-month production rule, historical/withdrawn participation in another WAIFF edition, and general premiere/prior-release rules.
The two PDFs’ differing wording on real-brand permission timing and fictional brand/product scope. Obtain written clarification for the actual work.

Official sources

This is an English summary, not the official rules. The organiser’s latest rules and written answers prevail. Inclusion is not an endorsement or a guarantee of selection.

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