Latvian filmmaker wins €400,000 Grand Prix at Kazakhstan's AI film festival

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Latvian filmmaker wins €400,000 Grand Prix at Kazakhstan's AI film festival   The first Astana AI Film Festival has concluded in Kazakhstan, with Latvian filmmaker Nikolay Shestak taking the Grand Prix. The festival had a total fund of €1.8 million, with half allocated to prize money and the other half to investment in promising AI teams and film production in Kazakhstan.   READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2026/10/06/latvian-filmmaker-wins-400000-grand-prix-at-kazakhstans-ai-film-festival  Euronews Next is a future-focused news section covering global innovation, science and technology with a European perspective. Our dedicated team of journalists aims to educate and inspire today’s leaders by providing them with analysis and insights into the people and organisations shaping our future

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00:00Kazakhstan has hosted the first Astana AI Film Festival in its capital.

00:04The festival had a total fund of 1.8 million euros,

00:08half for price money and the other half for investment in promising AI teams

00:12and film production in Kazakhstan.

00:14The event comes as Kazakhstan marks 2026 as the year of digitalization and artificial intelligence.

00:21Opening the festival, President Kassim Jomar Tokayev said the country is expanding

00:25the use of new technologies across different sectors.

00:28He acknowledged the risks that come with AI,

00:31but said the technology also offers enormous creative potential.

00:34Сегодня даже небольшие творческие команды могут составить достойную конкуренцию крупным студиям.

00:41Для производства фильмов творческим людям и съемочным группам

00:45уже не нужно обивать пороги продюсерских компаний или искать спонсоров.

00:51Вход на рынок значительно упростился.

00:54С одной стороны, это повышает конкуренцию,

00:56с другой стороны, открывает дорогу для самореализации по-настоящему талантливым людям.

01:03Latvian filmmaker Николай Шостак took the festival's Grand Prix

01:06and more than 400,000 euros for his film The First Honest Day.

01:11Second and third prizes went to AI filmmakers from India and Spain.

01:15The jury also awarded five prizes of 44,000 euros each

01:20in special categories for Best Story, Best Visuals, Best Directing, Best Concept and Best Character.

01:27The Grand Prix winner Николай Шостак says he put something personal into his film.

01:31When I made the movies, I put inside my personal some things, some thoughts,

01:36so that's all inside my film.

01:39People do bad things, they become ugly.

01:43So if you do something bad, you're ugly.

01:47If you are good, you're not ugly.

01:49Overall, 25 films made it to the finals,

01:52selected from more than 8,000 entries from 125 countries.

01:56Organizers plan to make the festival an annual event

01:59and attract international creators to Astana.

02:02Their longer-term goal is to see more AI films produced in Kazakhstan's capital.

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