Higgsfield Global Film Festival — Official Rules

Effective: August 10, 2026 · Last updated: September 16, 2026

Welcome, and thank you for making something with us.

The Higgsfield Global Film Festival is our way of putting real money behind the filmmakers pushing what AI cinema can be. We built these Rules to be fair to you, easy to follow, and clear about what we’re each committing to.

If anything here is unclear, please write to us at the address in Section 16. We would rather answer a question than see a great film disqualified over a misunderstanding.

Timeline

In short: we may finish screening or announce winners earlier than the dates above, but we will never move your submission deadline earlier. If dates change, the Timeline section on the festival website is always the current, authoritative schedule.

Higgsfield may complete screening, shortlist selection, jury review, and winner announcement earlier than scheduled. Submission and generation deadlines can only be extended, never shortened (see Section 13).

Overview

The Higgsfield Global Film Festival (the “Festival”) is a $1,000,000 USD cash-prize competition of skill for filmmakers creating short cinematic work entirely within the Higgsfield ecosystem. Winners are determined by judging on merit — chance plays no part.

The Festival is organized by Higgsfield Inc. (“Higgsfield,” “we,” “us”). These Official Rules are the single source of truth for eligibility, submission requirements, judging, and prizes. If anything on the website or in marketing materials conflicts with this document, these Official Rules govern. By entering, you agree to these Rules, Higgsfield’s Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy.

Void where prohibited by law.

At a Glance

1. Definitions

A few terms we use throughout — worth a quick read so nothing feels like jargon later.

• Higgsfield Ecosystem — the higgsfield.ai platform and all models available on it, together with its tools and features, including Festival submission projects.
• Entry — a single, standalone film submitted to the Festival, together with its submission project.
• Participant — an individual entrant, or in the case of a team, each team member.
• Team Leader — the owner of the submission project; the team’s single point of contact and payee.
• Generation Window — the period starting when the competition opens (Aug 10, 2026) and ending at the final submission deadline (Sep 16, 2026, 11:59 PM UTC), during which any new AI video and image generations for an Entry must occur on Higgsfield. Your own prior work and AI-generated audio are exempt from this timing rule under Section 4.
• Minimal Viable Submission (MVS) — the mandatory components listed in Section 4 that an Entry must include to compete.
• Track Prize — a prize awarded to the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Place winner selected by the jury.
• Audience Choice Award — the single prize awarded to the shortlisted film with the highest number of valid community votes.

2. Eligibility

In short: you need to be 18+ and a registered Higgsfield user — no paid subscription required to submit a film.Teams up to 4 are welcome. A few people connected to the Festival can’t compete — that’s to keep judging fair, not to exclude anyone we don’t want here.

Who can submit an Entry

• You must be a registered Higgsfield user — an account in good standing — both when your submission project is created and at the time of submission. A paid subscription is not required to enter or win.
• You may enter solo or as a team of up to 4 people. Team composition is locked at submission. Every team member must individually meet all eligibility requirements.
• The Team Leader is the owner of the submission project and the team’s payee.
• All participants must be 18 or older, or the age of majority in their jurisdiction, whichever is higher.
• The Festival is open worldwide, except where prohibited by law or where sanctions make participation or payouts impossible. Sanctioned persons and residents of embargoed territories are not eligible. See Section 6 for prizes that cannot legally be paid.

Excluded persons: employees, officers, and directors of Higgsfield and its affiliates; members of the jury; anyone involved in screening or winner selection; and the immediate family or household members of any of the above are not eligible to enter or win. Higgsfield creative partners and contractors who are not involved in judging or selection may participate. Persons subject to US sanctions or listed on a designated nationals list are not eligible.

3. Format & Entries

In short: it’s freeform. Make what you want, in the genre and style you want. Enter as many separate short films as you like — but a top prize goes to one film per participant or team.

The Festival is a single freeform track. Any genre, style, subject, and narrative approach is welcome, subject to Section 5 (Prohibited Content).

Entry limits. There is no cap on the number of Entries a participant or team may submit, but:

• Each Entry must be a separate, standalone film.
• The same film — or substantially the same film — may not be entered more than once.
• Higgsfield may treat near-duplicate Entries as a single Entry for judging purposes.

One prize per participant or team. A participant or team may receive only one Festival prize in total across all their Entries — whether that’s a Track Prize (1st, 2nd, or 3rd Place), the Audience Choice Award, or an Honorable Mention. Prizes do not stack. See Section 6 for how ties and multi-prize situations are resolved.

4. Film Requirements

In short: at least 3 minutes long. AI video and image generation happens inside a dedicated Cinema Studio festival project on higgsfield.ai. Traditional (non-AI) tools like Blender, After Effects, and DaVinci Resolve are welcome for editing, compositing, and 3D. All audio must be AI-generated. Keep your project assets in place so we can verify your work, and post your finished film to social with our watermark.

Where generation must happen

• AI generation must happen on Higgsfield. AI video and image generation must take place inside the dedicated Cinema Studio submission project on the higgsfield.ai platform. Higgsfield aggregates models from multiple companies — any model available through Higgsfield is eligible. Generating AI video or images outside of Higgsfield — on any other AI platform or third-party AI tool — is not allowed.
• Traditional (non-AI) tools are allowed. Traditional 3D, animation, editing, compositing, and design software — such as Blender, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Premiere, Photoshop, and similar — may be used freely at any stage of your film, provided they are not used to generate new AI imagery. Content produced in these tools counts as your own hand-made work.
• External editing rules. External tools may be used for cutting and assembly, color grading, precise mask-based retouching, titles, transitions, compositing, and traditional (non-AI) 3D and animation.
• All audio must be AI-generated. Music, voice, lipsync, dialogue, and sound design in your film must be produced with AI audio tools. Human-composed music, licensed stock music, recorded acoustic instruments, live vocals, human-recorded voice-over, and any other non-AI-generated audio are not allowed — including tracks you own or hold a license for. AI-generated audio may have been created at any point, before or during the Generation Window. Every audio file you use must be uploaded into your submission project, and you must be able to identify the AI tool used to generate it on request.
• Official Higgsfield material and integrations are exempt. Official Higgsfield open-source packs, Higgsfield projects such as HellGrind, Academy drops and similar may be used freely.
• Everything is public after submission. Once the submission deadline passes, every eligible submission project — including its final film, prompts, generation history, and all assets kept inside the project — becomes openly viewable to everyone on higgsfield.ai. Other users can inspect how your film was made, and Higgsfield uses the same visibility for auditing. If an Entry’s final footage does not match its own generation history, Higgsfield may investigate and disqualify the Entry.

Keep your assets in the project. All assets and generations used in your film must remain inside the Cinema Studio project — that is how we verify your generation history. If a project does not retain enough of its underlying assets to support that check, Higgsfield may mark the Entry non-eligible.

Minimal Viable Submission (MVS)

Every Entry must include, before the deadline:

1. Final video — with the official Higgsfield watermark and packshot.
2. Social media post — a valid public link on Instagram, YouTube, X (Twitter), or Reddit, showing your final film with watermark and packshot intact. Posting is a mandatory step, not optional.

The social media post is a submission requirement, not a judging criterion — the jury evaluates the film itself, never its social performance, views, or engagement. The post must remain publicly available through the end of the Festival: deleting or hiding it may make your Entry non-eligible. Involuntary removals — such as an account suspension or a platform action outside your control — are excused, provided the link was valid at the time of submission. Your post and account must both be public. The post must be published from a public account, not a private, protected, restricted, close-friends, or followers-only account, and must be viewable without logging in or requesting to follow. Please double-check this before you submit — posting a valid link from an account that is set to private (or that you set to private later) is the most common reason we mark an otherwise-strong Entry non-eligible.

Project covers, briefs, and additional materials are optional but encouraged — they help discovery and your chances in the Audience Choice Award. Any Entry missing an MVS component will be marked incomplete.

5. Prohibited Content

In short: don’t submit anything that would put you, us, or another person at legal or reputational risk. If any of the below is in your film, we can’t accept it — and if it slips through and is found later, the prize must be returned.

Entries containing any of the following are disqualified at any stage — including after a prize has been paid, in which case Higgsfield may require the prize to be returned (see Section 8):

• Protected intellectual property — characters, franchises, brands, logos, music, or other third-party IP used without authorization
• Pornographic or explicitly sexual content
• Violence against real individuals
• Political statements, endorsements, propaganda, or misinformation
• Religious statements, proselytizing, or disparagement
• Illegal, defamatory, or rights-violating content
• Content otherwise prohibited under Higgsfield’s usage restrictions
• Likenesses and voices of real people. Do not depict the likeness of any identifiable real person — whether captured, filmed, photographed, AI-generated, drawn, animated, or reproduced by any other means — and do not use a cloned, imitated, or otherwise reproduced voice of any identifiable real person. This rule applies to every real individual without exception: yourself, your team members, family, friends, public figures, celebrities, historical figures, and any other identifiable person. Consent does not override this rule. Films should feature only fully fictional AI-generated characters and voices.
• Depictions of children (under 18). Fictional AI-generated characters that appear to be children are permitted only when all of the following conditions are met: (i) the character is entirely fictional and does not resemble any identifiable real child; (ii) the character does not appear in any sexualized, romantic, suggestive, exploitative, or otherwise harmful context; (iii) the character is not depicted as a victim or perpetrator of graphic violence, self-harm, or abuse; (iv) the depiction complies with all applicable laws, including child protection laws in the participant’s jurisdiction and in the United States. Real children — including your own, your family’s, or any other identifiable child — may not be depicted, and their voices may not be used.

6. Prize Pool — $1,000,000 (All Cash)

In short: every dollar of the prize pool is real cash paid to filmmakers. One film wins one prize — Track Prizes, the Audience Choice Award, and Honorable Mentions do not stack, so the pool spreads across as many filmmakers as possible. Teams get one payment to the Team Leader, who splits it with the team.

One prize per film. One prize per participant or team. Track Prizes (1st, 2nd, 3rd Place), the Audience Choice Award, and Honorable Mentions do not stack — a single film may receive only one of them, and a participant or team may receive only one Festival prize in total, regardless of how many Entries they submitted.

Insufficient entries. If the Festival does not receive enough eligible Entries of sufficient quality, Higgsfield may reallocate any placement’s prize to additional Honorable Mentions or otherwise adjust the distribution, with the intent of awarding the pool as fully as possible across eligible work.

Prizes are non-transferable. No substitution is available; prizes are paid in cash (USD) via the payment method specified during winner verification.

Payout terms

• Team prizes are paid to the Team Leader, who is solely responsible for splitting funds among the team. Higgsfield has no liability for, and will not mediate, intra-team distribution.
• If the Team Leader cannot complete verification or legally receive payment, the team may designate another verified team member as substitute payee within the verification window.
• Winners must complete verification (Section 8) — including identity checks, eligibility confirmation and affidavit, tax forms, and payment details — within 14 days of notification. Failure to respond or complete verification within that period may result in forfeiture, and the prize may be reallocated to the next eligible Entry.
• Payments are issued within 45 days of completed verification.
• Recipients are responsible for any applicable taxes. Higgsfield may withhold or report amounts where required by law.
• If a winning Entry is based in a jurisdiction where Higgsfield is legally unable to issue payment (for example, due to sanctions), the prize will not be paid to that Entry and Higgsfield may reallocate it to the next eligible placement.

7. Judging & Audience Choice

In short: we screen every submission first. Then Higgsfield’s creative team compiles a shortlist from the eligible pool. The shortlist goes to two things in parallel: the community votes on it to decide the Audience Choice Award, and an independent jury review the same shortlist to select the 1st, 2nd, 3rd Place winners and the Honorable Mentions. Fourteen filmmakers win in total.

The Festival uses a staged process so that both the community and an expert jury shape the outcome.

Stage 1 — Screening (eligibility). The Higgsfield team reviews every submission against Sections 2, 4, and 5 — runtime, format, content compliance, generation history, and MVS completeness. Entries that don’t meet these thresholds are marked non-eligible and do not proceed.

Stage 2 — Shortlist compilation. From the eligible Entries, Higgsfield’s creative team compiles a Festival shortlist, selected against the four judging criteria below. Shortlist selection is not subject to community vote counts.

The four judging criteria used at every judging stage are:

• Directing & Storytelling — narrative clarity, emotional impact, cinematic point of view
• Visual Craft — composition, cinematography, world-building, coherence of AI-generated imagery
• Sound & Editing — sound design, music integration, pacing, and rhythm
• Originality & Concept — creative ambition, novelty of idea, effective use of the medium

Until final winners are announced, shortlist positions are marked preliminary on the festival website. A film may be removed from the shortlist during Stage 3 only for a material violation of these Rules (compliance failure, refusal to complete verification, or vote-manipulation finding) — never on taste or editorial grounds after seating.

Stage 3 — Two parallel tracks on the same shortlist

The shortlist opens two parallel processes running on the exact same set of films:

(a) Shortlist voting → Audience Choice Award. The full shortlist is published on the festival website for a focused round of community voting. Voting mechanics, opening date, and closing date are announced when the shortlist goes live. Every shortlisted film is eligible for votes throughout the voting window. Voting is limited to Higgsfield users with an active paid subscription at the moment the vote is cast.

Vote manipulation — automated bots, fake accounts, purchased votes, or coordinated inauthentic activity — is not allowed. Organic sharing, cross-posting, and asking your own community to vote for you are all welcome and encouraged. Higgsfield may exclude votes that appear manipulated, and may exclude a film from the Audience Choice Award if it identifies a manipulation pattern tied to that film.

The Audience Choice Award goes to the shortlisted film with the highest number of valid community votes cast during Stage 3, provided the film also passes compliance review (Sections 4, 5, and 8). If the top-voted film is disqualified on compliance grounds, the award moves to the next film by valid vote count.

(b) Jury → 1st, 2nd, 3rd Place, and Honorable Mentions. In parallel with Stage 3 community voting, an independent jury reviews the shortlist against the four judging criteria. Jury members apply the four judging criteria in good faith, recuse themselves from any Entry they have a conflict with, and select the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place winners and the Honorable Mentions (as defined in Section 6).

The jury’s selections — like all judging and selection decisions under these Rules — are final and binding, and are not subject to appeal or further review.

At any point during Stage 3, Higgsfield may remove a film from further consideration if:

• A compliance issue is identified — for example, an IP concern, likeness or voice issue, missing documentation, or a Section 5 violation surfaced during voting or review;
• Verification requested during this stage is not completed on time;
• Vote manipulation tied to the film was material enough to warrant broader disqualification.

If a film is removed for one of these reasons, the next film in the applicable ranking (community votes for Audience Choice, creative team / jury ranking for the other prizes) moves up to fill the vacated slot.

Final result: 14 winning films. Between the two parallel tracks, a total of fourteen filmmakers or teams win a Festival prize — one Audience Choice Award, one 1st Place, one 2nd Place, one 3rd Place, and ten Honorable Mentions. One film is awarded only one prize, and one participant or team receives only one Festival prize in total (Section 6).

Creative Partnership Program. Participants and winners may be invited to join Higgsfield’s Creative Partnership Program and receive platform credits and other benefits based on that program’s terms. Invitation to the program is separate from prize payouts and is entirely optional.

8. Verification, Fraud & Disqualification

Verification. Before any prize is paid, Higgsfield will verify the winner’s identity and eligibility. This may include identity (KYC) checks, sanctions screening, confirmation of age and account standing, a signed eligibility affidavit and publicity documents, and tax forms. Prizes are paid only after successful verification.

Audit rights. Higgsfield may request an Entry’s sources — generation history, prompts, project files, and information identifying the AI tools used to generate any externally produced audio — at any time, before or after winners are announced. Participants must retain this information for at least 24 months following submission and provide it on request. Refusal to provide requested materials is grounds for disqualification.

Grounds for disqualification include:

• Generating video or images outside the higgsfield.ai platform
• Using non-AI-generated audio in violation of Section 4
• Using previously generated third-party assets in violation of Section 4
• Using third-party protected content or content prohibited under Section 5
• Vote manipulation — automated bots, fake accounts, or purchased votes
• Submitting someone else’s work as your own
• Refusing to provide project assets or sources when requested
• Any material violation of these Rules or Higgsfield’s Terms of Service

Consequences. Depending on severity, Higgsfield may mark an Entry non-eligible, disqualify it, or permanently ban the participant from this and future Higgsfield contests.

Post-payment discovery. If a violation is discovered after a prize has been paid, the recipient must return the prize upon Higgsfield’s written demand. Higgsfield will apply this remedy proportionately and only for material violations of these Rules.

9. Rights & Licensing

You keep your rights. All copyright and other rights in your film remain with you, the author. Submitting to the Festival grants Higgsfield the licenses in this Section — keeping authorship doesn’t prevent Higgsfield from using your submitted materials as described below.

License to Higgsfield — Festival and product marketing. By submitting an Entry, you grant Higgsfield a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to screen, publish, reproduce, distribute, display, and use your film — and fragments of it, including stills, clips, and generation history — to:

• run and promote the Festival and future Higgsfield festivals and creator events, including on festival websites, Higgsfield’s social channels, press materials, and partner channels;
• showcase what can be made on Higgsfield with the platform’s credits and tools — including in marketing videos, landing pages, in-product examples, presentations, conference materials, and paid advertising for Higgsfield’s products.

Publication timing. Immediately after the deadline, all Entries published openly for the community to explore. Incomplete projects are not published and do not compete.

10. Your Warranties & Responsibility

By submitting an Entry, you represent and warrant that:

• The film is your (or your team’s) original work, created within the Generation Window in accordance with Section 4.
• You own, or hold a license sufficient for use under these Rules (including publication and Higgsfield’s marketing and distribution licenses in Section 9), for all elements of the Entry. Your use complies with the terms of any external tools involved.
• All audio in the film — including music, voice, lipsync, dialogue, and sound design — is AI-generated. No human-composed, licensed, stock, or recorded acoustic audio is used. You have retained information sufficient to identify the AI tools used to generate each audio element and will provide it to Higgsfield on request.
• The film does not depict the likeness of any identifiable real person — whether captured, filmed, photographed, AI-generated, drawn, animated, or reproduced by any other means — including yourself, your team members, family, friends, public figures, celebrities, or historical figures. The film contains no cloned, imitated, or reproduced voice of any identifiable real person. All characters and voices in the film are fully fictional.
• The Entry contains no content prohibited under Section 5 and violates no law or third-party right.
• All information you provide during registration, submission, and verification is accurate.

You agree to indemnify and hold Higgsfield harmless from any third-party claim arising out of your Entry or your breach of these warranties.

11. Disputes Between Participants

• Higgsfield does not mediate, investigate, or adjudicate disputes between participants, including claims that one Entry copies or infringes another.
• Higgsfield is not obligated to share any participant’s prompts, files, account data, or other materials with another participant.
• Higgsfield will only disclose such information where required by an official external legal process — for example, a valid subpoena, court order, or other lawful demand.
• Any infringement dispute between participants must be resolved directly between those parties. Higgsfield may exercise its discretionary right to disqualify an Entry depending on the circumstances.

12. Platform Availability & Festival Integrity

• Higgsfield does not guarantee uninterrupted platform availability. Scheduled maintenance and unforeseen outages may occur.
• If a widespread technical failure materially affects participants’ ability to generate or submit during the Generation Window, Higgsfield may extend the affected dates in accordance with Section 13 at its sole discretion.
• If fraud, technical failure, or events beyond Higgsfield’s reasonable control compromise the integrity of the Festival, Higgsfield may suspend or adjust the affected process (for example, Audience Choice voting) to the extent needed to protect fairness. In all cases, Higgsfield will aim to award prizes on the basis of eligible Entries received.

13. Schedule Changes

Higgsfield may extend any date in this Festival — adding time to the competition opening, submission deadline, judging periods, or ceremony. Submission and generation dates will never be moved earlier or shortened. Higgsfield may, however, complete internal screening, shortlist selection, jury review, and winner announcement earlier than the scheduled dates if the process allows. Any change will be reflected in the Timeline section and announced on the festival website.

14. Privacy & Publicity

• Participant data is processed in accordance with Higgsfield’s Privacy Policy.
• Winners agree that Higgsfield may publish their name or username, country, likeness, and excerpts of their film in connection with Festival results and promotion, without additional compensation, except where prohibited by law.

15. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Higgsfield and its affiliates are not liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages arising out of or relating to the Festival. Higgsfield’s total aggregate liability to any participant arising out of or relating to the Festival, regardless of the theory of liability, will not exceed ten thousand US dollars ($10,000 USD). Nothing in these Rules excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law, and nothing in this Section limits Higgsfield’s obligation to pay a prize duly awarded and verified under these Rules.

16. General Legal

• Governing law & disputes. These Rules and any dispute arising out of or relating to the Festival are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute arising out of or relating to the Festival will be resolved in accordance with the dispute resolution provisions of Higgsfield’s Terms of Service, including its arbitration agreement and class action waiver, which are incorporated into these Rules by reference. For any matter not subject to arbitration under the Terms of Service, the state and federal courts located in San Francisco, California, will have exclusive jurisdiction, and each participant consents to personal jurisdiction and venue in those courts.
• Final authority. Higgsfield has full and final authority over the interpretation and implementation of these Rules and may update them at its discretion. Material updates will be announced on the festival website; continued participation constitutes acceptance.
• Severability. If any provision of these Rules is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions stay in full force.
• Entire agreement. These Rules, together with Higgsfield’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, form the entire agreement for the Festival. In case of conflict regarding the Festival, these Rules control.
• Translations. These Rules may be translated for convenience; the English version controls.
• Contact. Questions about the Festival: https://discord.gg/hkZEK3XGRn.

Thank you for being part of this. We can’t wait to see what you make.