What we curate for, and what we reject

The principles

PYLON is curated, not algorithmic. A small editorial team reads, watches, and scores every submission against a published rubric. Each criterion scores 1–5; the publishing threshold is 22 of 30. Scores 18–21 escalate to a senior curator. Below 18 are declined with a template reason.

Filmmakers are welcome to re-submit revised work, and we will tell you which criteria were the gating issue.

Selection criteria. the six-criterion rubric

01 · Narrative coherence

Does it tell a story and have a point? We programme films that resolve, even quietly. A held silence is fine. A vibe-only montage is not. We score from 1–5 on whether intent and structure are legible to a first-time viewer with no context.

02 · Visual craft

Composition, colour, motion quality, and AI-artefact rate. We are not interested in the cleanest pixel pipeline; we are interested in images that hold attention. Visible technical control matters more than tooling.

03 · Human creative contribution

Evidence of selection, arrangement, and iteration. We want films where a human directed the work, not where a model produced it. We capture provenance at submission and weight this criterion heavily.

04 · Brand safety

Ads can run against it. No slurs, no hate, no targeted harassment, no non-consenting real-person likenesses, no content in violation of the AU Online Safety Act or US COPPA. This is the hard floor.

05 · AI-slop indicators (inverted)

We score against patterns we are curating against: faceless automation style, meme remix, compilation farm, misleading-trailer cuts, infinite-zoom B-roll. A high score means none of those patterns appear.

06 · Originality

Adds something to the AI-film canon, not a derivative. We are building a library, not a feed; every title needs a reason to be in it. Direct restatements of viral works, regardless of polish, do not pass.

Submission review SLA

We respond to every submission within fourteen calendar days. Most decisions return inside seven. You will receive either an offer with terms, an escalation note, or a decline with the criteria that gated the work. We do not ghost.

What we will not publish

• Prompt galleries, tool-chain breakdowns, or generation logs. We present films as films.
• Content featuring identifiable real persons without documented consent.
• Hate speech, calls to violence, or sexualised content involving minors.
• Content in violation of the AU Online Safety Act or US COPPA.
• Content whose AI provenance cannot be substantiated to our satisfaction.

Restoration after revision

A decline is not a ban. Filmmakers may re-submit a revised cut at any time; the file moves through the same rubric, and the prior score is treated as informational only. If the gating issue was a single criterion (say, narrative coherence), the revision review is faster.

---

This page is the public-facing summary. The formal legal version. with its versioning, change-log, and full definitions. lives at /es/legal/editorial-policy.