The Astana AI Film Festival in Astana has selected the best films created with the help of artificial intelligence. The Grand Prix and $450,000 went to Latvian director Nikolai Shestak, while Kazakh filmmaker Myrzakhan Zhumakhan won in one of the special nominations. The results were announced on October 3, according to the organizers. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
The festival ran from October 1 to 3 as part of AI Month, a month of events dedicated to artificial intelligence. The competition received 8,067 submissions from 125 countries. The selection committee included 25 works in the final program.
Main program winners
Ten films competed in the main thematic program, The Future Worth Living In. The Grand Prix went to Nikolai Shestak for "The First Honest Day" — a story about how actions change a person. According to the director's concept, bad deeds make him ugly, while good ones help him become better.
Shestak said he began directing about four years ago and started making films with AI two years ago.
"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 shared.
The director intends to invest the prize he received into new works and the development of his projects.
Second place and $200,000 went to Abhik Banerjee of India for the film "SITARA." Third place and $100,000 went to Ernest Desumbila of Spain for "Looking For Perseida."
Special nominations
The international jury also determined the winners in five special nominations. The Best Character award went to Myrzakhan Zhumakhan of Kazakhstan with the comedy "It Was Just a Joke."
In his film, a dog and the owner's brother start fighting over a simple joke, and then the conflict escalates into a real war. According to the author, he wanted to tell a light story that reflects his love of pranks and fun.
"To be honest, I was very nervous about the competition, because there are so many talented and cool guys here. All the participants did a lot of work and spent a lot of time on their films, so in my opinion, each of them was a worthy rival," Zhumakhan said.
In the Best Story nomination, the Chinese team 2xLabs won with the fantasy "The Last Span." The Best Visual award went to Jacopo Zanetti of Italy for the surrealist film "What's the Job?"
Another Italian author, Jacopo Reale, won in the Best Direction nomination for directing the thriller "The Fracture." The jury recognized the science-fiction adventure film "Pomegranate" by Zachary London of the United States as the Best Concept.
International jury composition
The international jury included former UNESCO Director-General and former French Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay, Dean of the China Film Group Institute for AI Research Ma Ping, and Deputy Dean of the Animation Faculty at the Beijing Film Academy Wang Hao.
Along with them, the works were evaluated by entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinivasan and BytePlus General Manager for the Middle East, Africa, India, Turkey and CIS region Li Long.
Business program and screenings
In addition to competition screenings, the festival included a business program and panel discussions with authors and representatives of the creative industries. The finalists' works were shown on October 2 and 3 on the big screen at the Chaplin cinema in the MEGA Silk Way shopping center.
Festival co-founder and AAIFF council chairman Almas Zhali said the organizers plan to develop the project and expand the international community of participants.
"We want Astana to become one of the venues where representatives of the film industry, technology and creative industries from around the world meet. The first festival gave us good momentum, and now our task is to develop the project further, expand the international community of participants and create new opportunities for authors working at the intersection of cinema and artificial intelligence," he said.
Funding
The total fund of the Astana AI Film Festival is $2 million. Of this, $1 million was provided by the Freedom Shapagat corporate fund under Freedom Holding Corp. These funds are intended for prizes for the winners.
Another $1 million is provided as investment capital for promising teams working with artificial intelligence. The funds will be directed toward the development of production and the AI ecosystem in Kazakhstan.
The general partner of the festival was Freedom Holding Corp., the technology partner was The Network School, and the partner was Kino.kz.