AI Film Festival (Daiff), Australia's first Gen AI Film Festival, has secured numerous sponsors and partners to support the first event.
Hosted by TBWA\Australia in ACMI Melbourne on November 26th, the festival will be supported by BMW, Google, Leonardo.ai, Red Rich, RMIT University, Swinburne University and the National Center for Artificial Intelligence.
Partner diversity “occurred naturally,” Lucio Ribeiro, Chief AI and Innovation Officer at TBWA\Australia, told LBB.
“The origin of Daif was to create a community for future Australian manufacturers. It was designed to be a coalition of voices for academic, high-tech, enterprise and legal influencers.
“There are AI film competitions that are emerging overseas with high-tech drives and gimmicks, but our focus is different: human creativity, future makers, and building Australian communities.”
Each partner offers something different, from BMW's creativity and engineering to Google's global leadership in AI innovation. Leonardo.ai generation tool. He holds Redlich's expertise in authors, copyrights and IP. Leadership in research and talent development at Swinburne and RMIT.
As part of its commitment to emerging talent, Leonardo.ai has donated 5,000 credits to Swinburne and Rmit students, providing access to modern generation tools, including frontier models such as Google's VEO3.
Lucio, who joined TBWA in the newly created role of AI in May, said that partner caliber proves that creativity AI is “no longer a hypothesis, it's a current reality,” attracting some of the world's most influential companies. Australia has the chance to become a responsible AI leader, he adds, and Deff is “to become an Australian forum for human-led creative AI films.”
“This isn't a fringe anymore,” he said.
“The coming together of a global automaker, a global high-tech giant, a cutting-edge AI platform and two universities demonstrate that the industry recognizes AI creativity as both cultural and economic opportunity.
“From the beginning, Paul Reardon [TBWA Melbourne CCO] And I made it clear to all my partners that Daiff is not just an AI movie race. It's about human-driven creativity, but it's also a forum for the industry-type conversations we urgently need: authors, copyright, talent and the creative future of our sector. The caliber of these partners examines their ambitions and gives the festival global weight. ”
The Alliance of Partners “makes Daiff unique Australians” along with a festival that helps shape the Australian AI scene.
“Together, we are not copying anyone else's models, we want to build a benchmark and community in Australia.
“Working with legal, cultural and academic partners, we are turning transparency into a shared standard for Australia's creative industry.”
According to TBWA, Australia's creative industry already contributes more than $17 billion a year to the economy and employs 600,000 Australians.
“It's a cultural provocation,” Lucio added about the festival.
“This is essential for the moment when the US is threatening tariffs on foreign-made films and putting pressure on Australia's $4.2 billion screen sector. Festivals like Daif protect the creative economy by fueling new skills, jobs and IPs that cannot be outsourced. Compete worldwide.
“As Susanna Listevsky, [CMO Google Australia and New Zealand] I said, Australia has always been home to world-class creators. Here's the next frontier for creative storytelling, and Deff puts it all together. ”
Daiff invites all creatives to submit their work to daiff.com.au. Submissions will end on October 20th, 2025.
