MEGA

The 5th MEGA International Creative Media Festival & Launch Ceremony of Immersive Dome Cinema

The 5^th MEGA International Creative Media Festival will be held on December 18 2025. This edition will use “Immersion” as its theme, providing creators with an imaginative space to construct the desired scenarios. Moreover, this year’s MEGA will be held at the newly completed Immersive Dome Cinema of XJTLU, where the cinema’s launch ceremony will also take place. We sincerely invite people from all industries to attend the ceremony.

MEGA International Creative Media Festival Overview

The MEGA International Creative Media Festival is an annual international event organised by the Academy of Film and Creative Technology at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, which has been successfully conducted for four consecutive years so far. MEGA is an integrated Media, Exhibition, Graphics, and Art concept.

MEGA International Creative Media Festival aims to promote film, television and creative media communication and provide a platform for sharing between academia and industry. The MEGA International Creative Media Festival focuses on the diverse forms of creative media communication. It carries out activities combining different arrangements and exhibitions of digital media arts, including the “International Creative Media Competition”, “Film, New Media and Creative Technology Summit”, and guests’ sharing, inviting scholars, experts, and students to join together to explore the trends in film, television, and new media arts, and enhance communications between students and relevant industry professionals.

The competition section of the 5^th MEGA International Creative Media Festival opened on 1 December 2024, adding two new categories: Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) and Short Videos.

AIGC represents a frontier domain in the media, film and art creative fields within the booming era of generative AI. The new AIGC category of this competition aims to inspire participants to unleash their creativity and imagination through AI technologies, and to explore and demonstrate the potential of AIGC in the field of art and design creativity.

Additionally, to adapt to the characteristics of content dissemination in the new media era, the competition includes a new category for short videos, which aims to foster more engaging content creation and innovative production methods. Diversified media formats can breathe new life into works, offering broader opportunities for creative ideas and providing fresh aesthetic possibilities for short videos, which often grapple with the challenges of “fragmented” media consumption.

The submission stage of the fifth MEGA International Creative Media Festival concluded in April 2025, attracting 1,384 entries from 14 countries and regions — a 67% increase from last year and a new record for the festival. Among them, 253 works were submitted by the professional group, reflecting the growing attention from industry creators.

This year’s submissions span China (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), as well as the UK, the US, South Korea, Japan, Australia and other regions. Participating institutions include renowned universities such as the Communication University of China, Beijing Film Academy, Shanghai Theatre Academy, the Royal College of Art, University of the Arts London and New York University. In addition, entries from 14 professional organisations, including Chongqing Three Keys Picture and NetEase Games, further enriched the professional depth of the competition.

The continued growth in participation highlights MEGA’s expanding international influence and reflects the dynamic development of the global creative media sector.

As a key component of the festival, a themed summit will be held on 18 December at the XJTLU Entrepreneur College (Taicang). Centred on “Immersive Future: Scene Revolution and Value Innovation Driven by Immersive Media”, the summit will facilitate in-depth dialogue and further explore the sub-topic “Immersive Media: Reconstructing Spatial Media Experiences”. Experts and scholars from universities, industry and creative institutions will be invited to discuss emerging trends and opportunities in immersive media technologies, particularly their potential to shape future spatial experiences, content innovation and value creation.