Kazakhstan has hosted its first Astana AI Film Festival on attracting more than 8,000 entries from 125 countries and emerging as the world’s largest international competition dedicated to AI-generated films.
Latvian filmmaker Nikolay Shestak won the festival’s Grand Prix and $450,000 for The First Honest Day. India’s SITARA took second place and $200,000, while Spain’s Looking For Perseida finished third with a $100,000 prize.
Kazakhstan’s Myrzakhan Zhumakhan received the Best Character award for It Was Just a Joke, a comedy about a dog and its owner’s brother whose dispute over a prank escalates into a confrontation resembling a blockbuster film.
Zhumakhan said his interest in pranks and humour inspired the story.
Only 25 films were selected for the final competition from thousands of submissions. The international jury included former UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinivasan, and other representatives from the film, technology and academic sectors.
The festival had a total fund of $2 million, with $1 million allocated to competition prizes and another $1 million earmarked for investment in promising AI productions.
The three-day festival ran from 1 to 3 October in Astana as part of AI Month and the AI & Digital Bridge 2026 technology conference. Organisers said they plan to make the event an annual festival.
Earlier, Qazinform reported that President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev attended the opening ceremony of the Astana AI Film Festival.
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