AIFJ 2026 Adds 24 Speakers, With Phil Tippett on the Bill

AI Film Japan announced 24 additional speakers on October 23 for AI Film Festival Japan 2026 (AIFJ 2026), bringing the lineup to 33 names ahead of the event's October 31-November 2 run at Tokyo Innovation Base (TIB) in Marunouchi, Tokyo, according to gamebusiness.jp. The first 9 speakers were announced on October 14.

Among the speakers is Phil Tippett, who has won two Academy Awards and two Emmy Awards for visual effects work on Star Wars, Jurassic Park and RoboCop. A special screening session is scheduled for November 2 at 11:10 with Tippett, Gary Mundell and Remko Noteboom, who are working on the Mad Goddess project, which combines Tippett's visual expression with AI production technology.

A November 1 session on how Japanese anime and IP can grow globally will feature BLUE RIGHTS CEO Makoto Kimura, a former MAPPA director, alongside two other speakers.

The festival received more than 730 submissions from over 60 countries, from which 68 official selections and 21 finalists were chosen. The awards ceremony on November 1 at 15:00 will announce the Grand Prix and other prizes, including the CapCut AI Creative Award and the Best Use of Voice presented by ElevenLabs.

Other speakers include imCore Corp.'s Dr. Charles Lee, director and animator Timo Ramu, TBS Television producer Masanao Takahashi and Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, who was named in the October 14 batch.

Background

Tippett released the stop-motion feature Mad God in 2021 after roughly 30 years of production. Kimura previously worked on anime planning and production at Fuji TV, Twin Engine and MAPPA, where he handled rights business as a director on titles including Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen and Attack on Titan The Final Season. Charles Lee's drama The Black Box ranked first on Netflix Taiwan and LINE TV in 2025.