The Cannes for Influencers? Meta Announces the Edits Film Festival

Meta is running a contest that asks Indian creators to shoot ordinary footage and edit it into something more polished. The launch of the Edits Film Festival expands the ever-evolving creator space, giving a platform to millions of aspiring content creators. The best 10-20 cinematic reels, made on Edits, will be screened at the film festival. The contest is using India’s large and active creator community as an early testing ground to increase its user base for Edits.

Ankit Rihal, who heads global partnerships for Meta India, described the festival as a way to get creators to use Edits more like a production tool than a quick-edit app. One of the judges Nikhil Taneja, who runs the youth media company Yuvaa, made a similar point: that a lot of what trends on Instagram traces back to young, less-established editors rather than big names.

Also Read: Meta Tests ‘Series’ Feature for Instagram Reels to Encourage Episodic Viewing

Entry requirements:

• Post a Reel made in Edits, using its filters, effects, audio tools, and overlays to rework unremarkable source footage.
• Keep it original and made during the 45-day submission window
• Caption the post noting which features were used, tag @metaindia and @weareyuvaa, and include #EditsFilmFestival

Four people are deciding what reels feature: actor Ahsaas Channa, creator Dolly Singh (who won an Instagram Rings Award in 2025), Yuvaa founder Nikhil Taneja, and film critic Rajeev Masand. Meta says they’ll measure originality, how much the footage was transformed, and how the app’s tools were used.