London's AI Movie Awards crown a short that already won Runway's Grand Prix

The AI Movie Awards gave Best Short to Robert Gaudette's A Face Only A Mother Could Love and Best Feature to Hal Watmough's The Trials at its first London ceremony, held Sunday 8 November at IET London, Savoy Place. The organizer, which ran the event with James Drake Media, announced the full winners list on Wednesday 11 November.

The headline winner was not a discovery. Gaudette's 7 minute 50 second film already took the US$50,000 Grand Prix at Runway's AI Film Festival in June, and AIMA's rules let films that have played elsewhere compete. That makes the circuit's real pattern plain: with no exclusivity rule, the same few AI films can win again and again, so a trophy now tells you the consensus pick, not who is new. For makers, the value is the room and the jury. The other thing the release skips is that its Best Feature winner runs 33 minutes and is described in the same release as a short.

Who won

Twelve films won 11 awards, because Best Thriller ended in a tie. The list matches AIMA's own winner graphics.

• Award: Best Short. Film: A Face Only A Mother Could Love; Director: Robert Gaudette
• Award: Best Feature. Film: The Trials (Beyond the Loop, Season 2); Director: Hal Watmough
• Award: Best Animation. Film: The Gift; Director: Junho Her
• Award: Best Drama. Film: Henry; Director: Emanuele Riccetti
• Award: Best Fantasy. Film: Elara & The Ash King; Director: Marcus Grip
• Award: Best Thriller (tie). Film: Maria Maria; The One Who Watches; Director: Alex Marco and Tomas Bucetto; Leighanne Fernandes
• Award: Best Cultural Heritage. Film: The Finding; Director: Vincenzo Lo Re
• Award: Best Diversity & Inclusion. Film: When You Run From Your Mum; Director: Edmond Yang
• Award: Best Sci-Fi. Film: They Came When We Left; Director: Justinas Vosylius
• Award: Best Music Video. Film: Oasis; Director: Glen Jacques Park
• Award: Best Ad. Film: Most Ideas Die in Notebooks; Director: Julien Paolini

Festival director Federico Luglio called the London screenings a real highlight and added: "The creativity, ambition and originality of the films demonstrate just how far AI filmmaking has come, and the possibilities that lie ahead."

Two winners, two routes

Gaudette, who runs Nolia Studios in Welland, Ontario, has toured A Face Only A Mother Could Love through a long list of festivals, and the poster on the London screen carried laurels from Runway, the Reply AI Film Festival and OMNI. The release says the film was made entirely with generative AI across visuals, character design, narration, music and sound. Gaudette has pushed back on one part of that picture: in a reply on X on Tuesday 10 November, he said AI was not used in the writing.

Watmough came up through television. He spent about 20 years cutting factual shows for the BBC and ITV, including as lead editor on The Repair Shop, and the release calls him a BAFTA-winning editor. The show's Royal Visit special won a Daytime BAFTA in 2023, but we could not confirm he cut that episode. The Trials is the first film in Season 2 of Beyond the Loop, an anthology from the London studio Wonder Studios, released on YouTube on Thursday 11 June 2026. Wonder funds creator shorts, owns the finished film and gives the filmmaker a share if it grows into a feature or series, according to a June profile of the studio. In that piece Watmough said the moving image ran mostly on Seedance, with Kling alongside it and stills from Nano Banana and an OpenAI image model. CapCut, invideo, OpenArt and ElevenLabs are executive producers on the season.

Three of this year's winners, The Trials, They Came When We Left and When You Run From Your Mum, also sit on Wonder's curated channel, Wonder TV.

What the release gets loose

AIMA's long category is listed as Best Movie on its FilmFreeway page and is open to films of 30 minutes or more. The Trials qualifies under that rule, but at 33 minutes it sits well short of the usual 40 minute line for a feature, which is why we call it a 33 minute film.

The counts are the organizer's own and they do not agree. The release says 30 finalists came from more than 500 submissions from 57 countries and that 300 guests attended. AIMA's homepage counter reads 1,178 submissions and 312 guests and gives no basis, so the higher number may be cumulative across both editions.

The published category list also does not match the stage. Best Thriller is not on it, and seven listed categories, including Documentary, Vertical Short and Hybrid, have no announced winner. The release also bills juror Fab Morvan as Grammy-nominated, when Milli Vanilli in fact won in 1990 and had the award withdrawn.

The fine print for entrants

AIMA is a commercial festival with commercial terms. Entry costs 25 to 35 euros per film, and there is no cash prize. Winners get a trophy or certificate, partner prizes and an optional revenue-share distribution offer, and finalists get one pass and pay their own way to the show. Co-organizer James Drake Media makes AI films with Luglio, but none of the 30 London finalists is one of its productions, as far as the published finalist list shows.

What it means for AI creators

• A finished short can tour, since AIMA has no exclusivity rule, so one strong film can carry a maker through several festivals in a single year, as Gaudette's did.
• The entry math deserves a budget line, because 35 euros plus travel buys a trophy and a seat in a room with Hollywood producers, not prize money.
• A studio deal is now a real route to the long categories, though Wonder's model means the studio owns the film and you keep a share of what comes next.

Our take

Independent makers paying entry fees will notice that the top prize went to a film the circuit had already crowned, and the long award went to a studio-funded film. That frustration is fair, but the takeaway is not that festivals are rigged. They reward finished, proven work, and both winners earned theirs. The smart play is to treat these nights as rooms where you get hired, while asking organizers for the one fix that costs them nothing: publish how the counts are made and name every category's winner.

Timeline

• Date: Fri 24 to Sat 25 Apr 2026. Event: First AIMA edition in Magaluf, Mallorca, 300-plus submissions; Source: AIMA site, Calvia council, Film-News
• Date: June 2026. Event: A Face Only A Mother Could Love wins Runway AI Film Festival Grand Prix; Source: Runway AIF film page, Gaudette on LinkedIn
• Date: Thu 11 Jun 2026. Event: The Trials released on YouTube; Source: Wonder Studios
• Date: Mon 15 Jun 2026. Event: London submissions open; Source: AIMA rules
• Date: Sat 17 Oct 2026. Event: 30 finalists announced; Source: AIMA on LinkedIn
• Date: Sat 7 Nov 2026. Event: Industry day, IET London; Source: AIMA program
• Date: Sun 8 Nov 2026. Event: Awards ceremony, IET London, Savoy Place; Source: AIMA winner graphics, Gaudette on X
• Date: Wed 11 Nov 2026. Event: Winners release published; Source: London Daily News
• Date: Fri 26 to Sat 27 Mar 2027. Event: Next AIMA edition, Magaluf; Source: AIMA site

Sources and what is unconfirmed: AIMA winners release (London Daily News and genbuzz, both 11 Nov 2026, same text, so one source); AIMA site, FAQ, rules and winner graphics; FilmFreeway listing; Runway AI Film Festival film page; Gaudette's posts on X; Wonder Studios and a June 2026 profile of the studio; BBC and Guardian BAFTA lists. Submission and guest counts are organizer-reported and conflict with the AIMA homepage. The Trials runtime is the organizer's figure. Watmough's credit on the BAFTA-winning episode is unconfirmed.

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