Latvian filmmaker wins €400,000 Grand Prix at Kazakhstan's AI film festival

Latvian filmmaker Nikolay Shestak has won the $450,000 (€401,000) Grand Prix at the first Astana AI Film Festival in Kazakhstan for his film The First Honest Day, created using artificial intelligence.

The First Honest Day explores how people's actions shape who they become, with bad deeds making its characters physically uglier and good deeds changing them for the better.

Shestak, who started directing around four years ago and began making films with AI two years ago, said he did not expect to win.

"Honestly, I didn't expect to win. There were so many incredible works and different genres here that I'm curious myself why the jury chose my film," he said.

He plans to invest the prize money in making new films and developing his projects.

Second place in the main competition went to Indian filmmaker Abhik Banerjee for SITARA, earning him $200,000 (€178,000), while Spain's Ernest Desumbila received $100,000 (€89,000) for Looking For Perseida in third place.

Another $250,000 (€223,000) was distributed across five categories in the open competition, with each winner receiving $50,000 (€44,000).

Kazakh filmmaker Myrzakhan Zhumakhan won Best Character for his comedy It Was Just a Joke. China's 2xLabs won Best Story for The Last Span, while Italian filmmaker Jacopo Zanetti received Best Visual for What's the Job?. Another Italian filmmaker, Jacopo Reale, won Best Direction for The Fracture, and US filmmaker Zachary London took Best Concept for Pomegranate.

The films were judged not only on how AI tools were used but also on their artistic vision, storytelling and overall coherence, as well as how organically the technology was integrated into the creative concept.

The international jury included Audrey Azoulay, former Director-General of UNESCO and former French Culture Minister, Ping Ma of China Film Group, Wang Hao of Beijing Film Academy, entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinivasan, and BytePlus executive Long Li.

This year's competition attracted more than 8,000 submissions from 125 countries, with 25 films selected for the final programme. The projects span 19 genres and were created using more than 80 generative AI models.

A festival drawing thousands of AI filmmakers

The festival had a total fund of $2 million (€1.8mn). Half of it, provided by the Freedom Shapagat Corporate Foundation under Freedom Holding Corp., was allocated to prize money.

Another half was set aside as investment capital for promising AI teams and the development of production in Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who opened the festival, highlighted how artificial intelligence is changing the industry.

"Filmmakers and production crews no longer need to knock on the doors of production companies or look for sponsors. The barrier to entry has become significantly lower," he said.

At the same time, Tokayev said AI would not replace the creative role of filmmakers, but could become "an indispensable tool for everyone who has devoted their life to creativity."

He also said the festival was timely for Kazakhstan, pointing to the country's young population.

"Kazakhstan is a country of young people. The average age of our population is 33. I consider Kazakh youth educated, open to new ideas, intelligent and thoughtful," Tokayev said.

For AAIFF co-founder and creative director Aizat Kussainov, the rapid pace of development in artificial intelligence was one of the main reasons to launch the festival.

"The driving force of this festival was FOMO. We had a fear of missing the opportunity because the technology is moving very fast," Kussainov said.

"But no one had actually created a festival like this, and we wanted to be the first in the world — and we did it. We had the biggest AI film festival in the world."

Kussainov said the ambition goes beyond staging the festival itself and is also about bringing international creators to Kazakhstan.

"The main goal actually was not the festival. It was bringing the whole creative community here to Astana and making them see how our country is developing. We want them to move here and start creating their new movies from here," he said.

The competition films were also screened for the public in cinemas in Astana, allowing audiences to see the films selected for the festival and how artificial intelligence is being used in filmmaking.