# Same Time Next Year

AI-made. Made with AI, as its festival says: “The 2026 edition of the Artefact AI Film Festival — an international competition for short films made with generative AI, organised by Artefact with mk2.” ([its page](https://artefact-ai-film-festival.com/), read 2026-11-12).

By Da Li, as [Artefact AI Film Festival](https://artefact-ai-film-festival.com/gallery) names them.

Grandma Ruth lives alone at the end of Maple Lane. The town's children run past her dark house, but every Halloween she sets out candy, carves a gap-toothed pumpkin and waits. A small, silent trick-or-treater in a patched bedsheet knocks. They share cocoa, carve and laugh. At midnight he asks in crayon: "Same time next year?" As he walks down the porch steps, the wind lifts the sheet: it falls flat on the leaves, empty. Ruth is not surprised. Inside, she turns over a face-down frame: a 1952 photo of two children in bedsheets — "Ruthie & Tommy — Same time next year!"

Plays in Vimeo's player, on Vimeo, by the link its maker gave the festival: [watch it there](https://vimeo.com/1234655374).