Latvian Filmmaker Wins €400,000 Grand Prix at Kazakhstan AI Film Festival

Latvian filmmaker Nikolay Shestak has won the Grand Prix at the inaugural Astana AI Film Festival in Kazakhstan, receiving a prize of approximately €400,000 for his artificial intelligence generated film The First Honest Day.

The first edition of the festival attracted more than 8,000 entries from 125 countries, highlighting the rapid growth of artificial intelligence as a tool for filmmaking and creative production.

Shestak’s winning film examines the relationship between human actions and personal identity. The story presents a world in which harmful behaviour changes characters physically for the worse, while positive actions have the opposite effect.

The filmmaker, who began directing about four years ago and started incorporating AI into his work around two years ago, said he was surprised by the decision of the international jury.

Shestak said the competition featured a wide range of impressive films and genres, making the final result unexpected for him. He plans to use the prize money to finance new films and continue developing his creative projects.

Indian filmmaker Abhik Banerjee finished second with SITARA, receiving about €178,000, while Spanish filmmaker Ernest Desumbila took third place with Looking For Perseida and received approximately €89,000.

The festival also awarded prizes in five additional categories, with a total of about €223,000 distributed among the winners.

Kazakh filmmaker Myrzakhan Zhumakhan won the Best Character award for the comedy It Was Just a Joke. China’s 2xLabs received Best Story for The Last Span, while Italy’s Jacopo Zanetti won Best Visual for What’s the Job?

Another Italian filmmaker, Jacopo Reale, received the Best Direction award for The Fracture. American filmmaker Zachary London won Best Concept for Pomegranate.

The judging process focused on more than the technical use of artificial intelligence. Judges considered artistic creativity, storytelling, overall consistency and how naturally AI technology was incorporated into each project.

The international jury brought together figures from the worlds of culture, cinema and technology, including former UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay, China Film Group’s Ping Ma, Beijing Film Academy’s Wang Hao, entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinivasan and BytePlus executive Long Li.

The festival had a total fund of approximately €1.8 million. Around half was dedicated to prize money, while the remaining funds were reserved for investment in promising artificial intelligence teams and film production projects in Kazakhstan.

Kazakh President Kassym Jomart Tokayev, who opened the festival, said artificial intelligence was lowering the traditional barriers faced by filmmakers seeking funding and production opportunities.

He argued that creators no longer necessarily need to rely on major production companies or traditional sponsors to bring their ideas to the screen. At the same time, he stressed that AI should be viewed as a powerful tool rather than a replacement for human creativity.

Festival co founder and creative director Aizat Kussainov said the event was created partly in response to the speed at which AI technology is developing. He described the festival as an effort to establish a global platform dedicated specifically to AI generated cinema.

Kussainov said the broader ambition was to attract international filmmakers and creative professionals to Astana and encourage them to consider Kazakhstan as a place to develop future projects.

The festival’s organisers also used the event to showcase Kazakhstan’s growing interest in artificial intelligence and creative technology. The country’s young population was highlighted as an important advantage as new technologies reshape industries.

The selected films were screened publicly in cinemas across Astana, giving audiences an opportunity to experience the emerging style of AI assisted filmmaking.

The success of the inaugural event reflects the growing international interest in artificial intelligence as a creative medium. With thousands of submissions from around the world and filmmakers experimenting with increasingly advanced generative tools, the Astana festival is positioning itself at the centre of a rapidly changing film industry.

Courtesy: euronews