Finland’s Gaussian Scout takes Best European Project and an entrepreneurship prize, while Spain’s Pixentinel lands the €30,000 ($34,800) Spanish award SAN SEBASTIÁN, Spain — Finland’s Gaussian Scout (formerly listed Virtual Location Scouting) and Spain’s Pixentinel claimed the top prizes at the 2026 Zinemaldia Startup Challenge, the San Sebastián Festival’s flagship technology competition. Gaussian Scout, a browser-based virtual location scouting platform being developed by Finnish cinematographer Antti Ahokoivu, won Best European Project with its €10,000 and also picked up the €3,000 Special Mention for Entrepreneurship. Spanish streaming-operations startup Pixentinel took the €30,000 Best Spanish Project award.
Rather than simply flagging when a live stream has broken, Pixentinel aims to determine where a failure originated supplu evidence to the diagnosis and, where possible, automatically trigger a response. The proposition is aimed at broadcasters and streaming operators feel the hit of short interruptions during live programming can become lost viewers and revenue. Ahokoivu admitted the double win came as a surprise after travelling from Finland with a project that is still pre-commercial somewhat a side project to his Cinematorgraphy work.
More important than the prize itself, he said, was seeing people engage with the idea. The prize money will now help Gaussian Scout move into tests on real productions and further develop the cloud-based system that will eventually allow users to upload and work with their own digital twins. The 2026 Zinemaldia Startup Challenge offered €30,000 for the Best Spanish Project, €10,000 for the Best European Project and a €3,000 Special Mention for Entrepreneurship.
The competition is the centerpiece of the Festival’s Zinemaldia & Technology initiative and is organized by the San Sebastián Festival in collaboration with Tecnalia, ALÍA and Vicomtech. The Spanish competition also forms part of Spanish Screenings: Financing & Tech, supported by Spain’s Ministry of Culture through ICAA, the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Civil Service, ICEX, the Málaga Festival and the San Sebastián Festival. Prior to the win announcement the ten finalists, five Spanish and five from elsewhere in Europe, pitched their projects with each given a strict 10 minutes to present and field questions.
Cinematographer Antti Ahokoivu is developing this browser-based tool intended to make remote location scouting more spatially informative than conventional photographs. Ahokoivu’s starting insight was simple: flat images rarely communicate the true proportions and geometry of a filming location for the disparate teams. GaussianScout, formerly listed as Virtual Location Scouting, brings Gaussian splats, XGRIDS scans, photogrammetry and related 3D capture methods into a shared environment where filmmakers can explore spaces, frame potential shots, even measure spaces accurately.
Script-import tools are also planned. The project is still pre-commercial, with a subscription launch is targeted for autumn 2027. Berlin-based Graphrs wants to become the “operating system for video production,” orchestrating everything from scheduling and staffing to shoots and AI-assisted content creation in a single platform.
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