Inaugural Astana AI Film Festival Reveals Winners, Chinese Team Wins Best Story Award

On October 3, the inaugural Astana AI Film Festival (AAIFF 2026) announced its winners in the Kazakh capital. Latvian director Nikolay Shestak took the Grand Prix and a $450,000 prize for "The First Honest Day," while entries from India and Spain claimed second and third place. Chinese team 2xLabs won the Best Story Award for "The Last Span."

The festival received 8,067 submissions from 125 countries and regions, with 25 finalists. According to organizers, the submitted works combined more than 80 generative AI models. The international jury included Audrey Azoulay, former Director-General of UNESCO, and Ma Ping, head of the China Film Archive's AI research institute. Finalist screenings were open to the public from October 2.

The winning film "The First Honest Day" is a satirical story in which people's faces mutate as a result of lies and deceit. "The Last Span," from China, follows a bridge builder who resumes his craft to help a six-year-old girl cross a river to find her mother, only to awaken an ancient creature beneath the water.

The festival was part of the AI and Digital Bridge 2026 forum, which also gathered industry figures such as a vice president of Nvidia for discussions on AI capital, computing power and technology. A co-founder of the festival said AI tools have removed resource constraints in filmmaking, and that AI films will hold a place in the future market without replacing traditional cinema.