On October 3, the inaugural Astana AI Film Festival announced its winners. Latvian director Nikolay Shestak won the grand prize of $450,000 for "The First Honest Day," followed by entries from India and Spain in second and third place. Chinese team 2xLabs took the Best Story Award for "The Last Span." The festival received 8,067 submissions from 125 countries and regions, with 25 finalists using over 80 generative AI models.