Centenarian Kindergarten

Centenarian Kindergarten is an AI-generated short film of about eight minutes, released in 2026 and made by 2xLabs, a Shenzhen-based studio that Reply's festival describes as a collective of visual artists. It is a comic science-fiction fable about ageing and freedom. A copy is on YouTube, and 2xLabs also posted a trailer on its TikTok account.

2xLabs entered the film in the 2026 Digitaling Awards, in the creative technology category, where its project page is dated March 2026. The page says it was made with AIGC and cutting-edge AI technology but does not name specific models or software, and it does not describe the shot-by-shot process. The makers say they used childlike play to talk about ageing and comedy to talk about death.

Digitaling credits 田俊超 as both executive producer and director, with 季子华 and 王文荣 as screenwriters, and 刘树恒 and 秦增福 as associate directors. The AIGC work is credited to 刘树恒, 秦增福 and 慧敏, music and sound to 束丹年, and production coordination to 王文荣. The page lists the studio as 2xLabs, of Shenzhen.

The film was a finalist in the third Reply AI Film Festival, one of ten chosen from more than 3,000 short films from 76 countries. Reply's announcement says the ceremony was held on Sunday 6 September 2026 at the Match Point Arena, Tennis Club Venezia on the Lido, alongside the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. Digitaling says the film was also screened at the Cannes Film Festival. When the catalogue last read them on 6 October 2026, its YouTube upload had 15 views and the TikTok trailer 119.

At Venice, Centenarian Kindergarten took third place and won the AI for Good Award, presented with the International Telecommunication Union for the most effective interpretation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The overall winner was Robert Gaudette's A Face Only A Mother Could Love, and the jury was chaired by director Gabriele Salvatores. Digitaling lists a run of other prizes: Best Creative in the AIGC short film unit at the Beijing International Film Festival, first prize at MangoTV's AI Youth night, third prize in an open track of a Bilibili AI competition, a bronze award at a Weibo AI video competition, Best Screenplay at AAFF, the Narrative Golden Frame award at the Huanjing film festival, and Best Film in the AI unit at Portugal's Avanca festival. It was also selected for a Top 100 AI list.

Its place in AI filmmaking, as these pages put it, is as a Chinese entry that reached the final ten of one of the larger AI film competitions and was recognised by an ITU-backed award for its treatment of the UN's development goals.