The 2027 Dasein AI Film Festival explores the evolution of character in an age transformed by artificial intelligence.

Inspired by Martin Heidegger's philosophy of Dasein, we continue to ask not only what it means to exist, but what it means to exist responsibly. If technology is reshaping our world, then our greatest challenge is no longer intelligence alone—it is wisdom, integrity, compassion, and the choices we make with that intelligence.

This year's Festival is also informed by Pope Leo XIV's recent reflections on artificial intelligence, human dignity, and the importance of ensuring that technology serves humanity rather than reducing people to mere resources or algorithms. His call for love, dignity, and ethical responsibility resonates with many of the questions Heidegger raised decades earlier about technology's power to shape how we understand ourselves and the world.

The Festival further draws inspiration from Ilgaz Kuren's forthcoming book, Asking the Right Questions, which argues that humanity's future depends not only on building more powerful technologies, but on cultivating better questions, moral courage, deeper understanding, and the capacity to love beyond ego.

We welcome narrative, documentary, animation, experimental, hybrid, and other cinematic works exploring consciousness, ethics, identity, compassion, integrity, interconnectedness, humanity's relationship with nature, emerging technologies, and new visions for civilization.

Films are encouraged—but not required—to interpret the annual theme directly.