Best Use of Voice presented by ElevenLabs

AI Film Festival Japan (AIFJ) 2026 is proud to announce a new special award sponsored by ElevenLabs: the "Best Use of Voice - presented by ElevenLabs."

This award is a special prize recognizing the creative expression of "voice" in video works within the AI era.

1. Evaluation Criteria

Candidates for this Award will be selected from the applicable AIFJ Finalist / Shortlist pool. Works will be evaluated based on the following creative framework:

Voice Performance & Direction (Highest-Priority): Expressing deep emotion and context of the characters.
Voice as Storytelling: How the voice drives and elevates the narrative.
Localization / Dubbing Craft: (Where applicable) Naturalness and technical skill in multilingual adaptation.
Technical Execution: The quality of voice generation and precision of its integration into the visual.

2. Eligibility & Responsible Use (Crucial Requirement)

💡 Use of ElevenLabs products is NOT required

Use of ElevenLabs products is not required for Award eligibility and will not receive a scoring bonus or other preference.

[Rights, Consent & Responsible Use]

For all human voices used in the work, the Creator must be able to declare that each relevant voice is either:

(a) the performer's own performance used with the performer's consent.
(b) an authorized or licensed voice model or licensed voice used within the applicable permission.
(c) a synthetic voice not tied to a real person.

Prohibited: A work that replicates or imitates the voice of a real person without the consent of the person or applicable rightsholder will be ineligible (disqualified). The Creator must also disclose the tools and workflow used for voice generation, transformation, or dubbing.

3. Winner Benefits

The winner of this Award will be provided with the following benefits by ElevenLabs:

Six (6) months of an ElevenLabs Professional license
An ElevenLabs merchandise / novelty set
A feature or introduction of the winner and winning work through an appropriate ElevenLabs Japan-facing owned channel

4. Data & Rights Protection

AIFJ and ElevenLabs prioritize the protection of creators' rights.

ElevenLabs will use Award candidate information solely for Award review and related administration.
No AI Training: ElevenLabs will not sell, repurpose, disclose onward or use such materials for model training, fine-tuning, dataset creation, or voice cloning unless separately agreed in writing with all applicable rights and consents.
All rights in Creator works, voices, performances, likenesses and third-party materials remain with the applicable rightsholders.

Submit to AIFJ 2026