In 2025, we laid the foundations: bringing together cinema, series, and artificial intelligence. In 2026, we're entering a new phase. A revolution is underway, discreet but massive: that of new formats.

On TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram, a generation is inventing without asking permission. It's using AI as a narrative engine. It's moving from content to story, from post to series, from short formats to cinema. New genres are exploding, boundaries are falling. New talents are telling stories—elsewhere, differently, faster. A new grammar is emerging—fast, hybrid, fluid.

WAIFF 2026 is taking this wave head-on. It connects two worlds that viewed each other from afar: the audiovisual industry and digitally native creators. The Festival is becoming a laboratory: we test, we prototype, we manufacture.

Masterclasses, roundtables, experiments: this second season will be a live crash test of the future of storytelling. A positive friction zone between cinema and avant-garde storytelling. A space where formats are hybridized, where roles are reversed, where young talents take the lead. A creative empowerment.

And this empowerment won't happen without them. WAIFF is accelerating: more women, more voices shifting the boundaries. It's time to rebalance the imagination—just like the changing world.