Step into the Warped Dimension Film festival— a film festival celebrating the boldest innovations in AI, Animation and Experimental storytelling. Presented by the team behind Another Hole in the Head, San Francisco’s longest-running genre film festival, Warped Dimension is your gateway to the strange, surreal, and boundary-pushing future of cinema. Whether it's hand-drawn hallucinations, cutting-edge neural networks, or uncanny blends of human and machine creativity, we’re looking for work that challenges conventions and bends reality.

Join us May 8th and 9th 2026 at the historic Balboa Theater in San Francisco for our inaugural live event, where independent animators, digital dreamers, and AI auteurs will come together for screenings, panels, and wild conversations about where film is headed next. If your project plays with perception, experiments with technology, or brings something entirely new to the screen, we want to see it. Submissions are now open — show us what the future looks like through your lens.

We’re looking for Features, Featurettes & Short Films that fit into the following categories:

* Animation - Includes cartoons, stop-motion, CGI, etc.
* AI - Artificial Intelligence, full or hybrid
* Experimental

Awards & Prizes

Our audience at each screening will receive a ballot and after each screening they will have an option to rate the film from 1 to 5, 5 is the best. The most highly rated films will receive Audience Awards

Best Animation
Best AI
Best Experimental

In addition, one Staff Award will be given: Favorite Film and Favorite Trailer

Rules & Terms

Upon notification of Official Selection, you will be required to respond via email -please add the address to your contacts. This address will be your sole point of contact with the festival. We will be sending bulletins to you from that address, so please do not unsubscribe from the list, or your film will be at risk of disqualification.

We require certain files and info in order to promote your film; please make sure that all of the following are either included on your FilmFreeway page or ready to be made available privately before ...

• a "portrait mode" (vertical) poster, preferrably 2:3 ratio.
• A few "landscape mode" (horizontal) HD stills showing eye-catching scenes from the film. No studio headshots, no production shots with visible crew/equipment, no added text/logo/etc.; nothing so dark that people seeing it on their phones can’t make it out
• A trailer, or at least a teaser. A brief clip (25 to 60 seconds) with a title card at the beginning or end will do. We’ll need a downloadable link from FilmFreeway, Dropbox, Vimeo, or Google Drive, but an additional streamable link from Vimeo or YouTube would be appreciated.
• The following credits (whenever applicable): Director; Writers; Key Cast; Cinematographer/DP; Animator; Music/Composer
• An .MP4 (preferred) or .MOV file of your film in HD or Full HD (no ProRes/DCP, no 2K/4K) coded at 10mbps, with stereo or mono sound. We prefer to download from Vimeo, Dropbox, FilmFreeway, or Google Drive, as they are faster than other transfer services. We cannot download from YouTube.

Films from any year of release are eligible for submission.

Films that have been made available online are still eligible for submission. However, once a film becomes an Official Selection we will expect its availability for public viewing to be suspended on all platforms from the day before we announce the schedule until shortly after its screening with us has concluded.

Legal Matters:

Submitters understand that submission of their work authorizes the Festival to use the work and any info/materials supplied via FilmFreeway for exhibition, education, or publicity purposes related to the festival. In addition to screening(s) during the festival, this includes sharing trailers & clips on social media and elsewhere, as well as allowing select individuals to view entire works for the purpose of publishing advance reviews.

The Festival is not responsible for any claim involving copyright, trademark, credits, or royalty infringement related to the work.

Submitters may receive future correspondence from info@ahith.com; an "unsubscribe" option is available in all email bulletins.
43 Reviews
Overall Rating
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Networking
  • Andrew Goldfarb

    Warped Dimension is one far out film festival - it feels like a convention of weirdos floating in a phantasmagoric corner of cyberspace while being entertained by the strangest shorts ever shot. Plus Q&A!

    June 2024
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  • Ian Gibbins

    A really fine festival, with a great sense of community, fostered by the on-line Q&A sessions, and the excellent communication with the organisers. The program mix is eclectic, entertaining and inspiring in equal measures. I'm always really pleased to be on the program and amazed to have picked up an award or two...

    June 2024
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  • Christian Gandler

    really cool festival, we saw a lot of interesting Short films and had such a good time at the online screening and Q&As..and are honoured to get chosen for best "experimental/art film", unlike a lot of other online-festivals, they seem to really care for the movies and put a lot of love into it..

    June 2024
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  • Alvaro Pruneda

    Thank you for the consideration and time dedicated to this film festival and to value our work.

    June 2024
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  • yoshinobu nakamura

    Thank you for winning “Staff Favorite Film”! I am thrilled that I was able to participate from Japan and receive an award!

    September 2023
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