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.
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.
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