[SYDNEY, JULY 3 2026] The OMNI International AI Film Festival has today announced the 23 winning films selected for OMNI 1.5 “HYPERPHANTASIA”, presented by Envato.
Standout winner selections from countries across the globe, including Canada, the USA, the UK, Brazil, Ukraine and Australia, will be screened in Sydney at The Collider in Haymarket on July 3, 2026.
Marking OMNI’s third major call for entries, the festival received five times the submissions of OMNI 1.0 held in November of 2025. The 3,800+ films from creators around the world ranged from sci-fi dystopias and romantic comedies, to short documentaries and full-length feature films.
Unlike other film festivals, OMNI only screens films in person, bringing human made, AI assisted cinema into cultural environments and live audience settings. In its first year of screenings, the Sydney-founded festival has already welcomed more than 16,000 attendees to in-person events globally, including screenings across Australia, China, Japan, India and Switzerland.
OMNI Co-Founder Travis Rice says the calibre of this year’s entries showed that AI filmmakers are not just testing new tools, the films reflect the rapid evolution of AI cinema from technical experiment to a serious storytelling medium, with creators using generative tools to explore questions of identity, climate anxiety, agency, humour, memory, and human emotion.
“We had an incredible amount of content to sift through to surface the best of the best, with so many impressive films that our judging panel had to debate deeply to determine the excellent ones,” said Rice. “What stood out was how clearly AI filmmakers are grappling with the same challenges we are all facing in this moment of technological acceleration, from questions of human agency and authenticity to environmental disaster and climate anxiety.
“These stories feel ripe and ready to be told by new voices from the edge, from traditional filmmakers and advertising creatives to newcomers who have never had the chance to bring their visions to screen. I’m incredibly hopeful to see stories of optimism, curiosity and change reflected in this evolving artistic medium, and it’s exciting to see Australians keeping pace, with some of the best films coming from right here in Sydney.”
This year’s winners were selected by a jury led by acclaimed director Alex Proyas, best known for directing The Crow and I, Robot, alongside a global judging panel assessing the works for human-crafted storytelling, cinematic ambition and extraordinary visuals, including Yan Chen, CEO of Aurora AI; Clayton Jacobson, Australian film director; Thea-Mai Baumann, futurist and Director of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art; and Professor Toby Walsh, AI expert and United Nations advisor.
On the calibre of films OMNI is seeing, Co-Founder Aryeh Sternberg shares, “The tools are advancing so rapidly, and because of this, we have introduced a new category, Award for ‘AI Performance’, to the upcoming 1.5 festival. It’s truly mind-blowing what these tools are capable of producing with human guidance, to the point some entrants needed to confirm their films were truly AI generated.”
OMNI 1.5 “HYPERPHANTASIA” is presented by Envato, a global leader in creative technology and a Shutterstock subsidiary, empowering millions of creative professionals with commercial-ready stock assets and purpose-built AI capabilities.
“Hyperphantasia” is inspired by the neurological phenomenon characterised by mental imagery so vivid it can rival real-world perception. For OMNI 1.5, it serves as both an aesthetic benchmark and a creative provocation: what becomes possible when the barriers between imagination and image collapse entirely?
Standout winners from OMNI 1.5 “HYPERPHANTASIA” include:
“Hyperphantasia” Best Picture Award
A Face Only a Mother Could Love
Canada
Robert Gaudette
Signal to Noise Award
The Patchwright
USA
Zack London
OMNI Golden AI Performance Award
Lilies
UK
Muhammed Jabir
Golden Storytellers Award – Short Form
Le Drip
USA
Alex Naghavi and Ezra Li
Golden Storytellers Award – Long Form
Sinuca de Bico (Cornered)
Brazil
Odair Faleco
The Envato Pattern Recognition Award
(Recognising the most creative fusion of stock imagery, AI and cinematic intent)
The Reckless Play
Ukraine
Maria Zozulia
Documentary Short Form
Guardians of the Burrow
Australia
Jodie Heenan
A selection of winning films will screen in Sydney on July 3. For tickets and more details and the full list of winners, visit: www.omnifilmfestival.com/hyperphantasia
About us:
The OMNI AI Film Festival is the Southern Hemisphere’s first International AI Film Festival and a leading global community celebrating cinematic generative filmmaking. Founded by Travis Rice and Aryeh Sternberg in Sydney, OMNI provides a global platform for creators to explore the intersection of technology and storytelling, as a global celebration of creativity, culture and machine intelligence. OMNI exists to advance the cultural conversation around generative AI as a serious and rapidly evolving medium for storytelling.
Contact details:
For interview requests with OMNI founders Aryeh Sternberg or Travis Rice, or clips of the AI films please contact Brooke Mason at Agent99 PR at [email protected].
