Astana is preparing to put AI cinema on the big screen. The Kazakhstan capital’s international AI film festival has received 8,067 entries, with $1 million in prizes and a separate $1 million investment fund for promising teams, DKNews.kz reports.
Festival co-founders Almaz Zhali, Chairman of the AAIFF Board, and Aizat Kusainov, Creative Director, announced the submission results at a briefing in Astana. The festival’s official website confirms entries from 125 countries and regions and dates of October 1–3, 2026.
Kazakhstan ranks second for submissions
Kazakhstan contributed 829 entries, placing it second behind the United States. India, China, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Japan, Brazil and France also feature among the ten leading countries by submission volume.
According to the organizers, 4,756 individual creators entered the competition, with some submitting several films.
Nearly 40% of entries—3,138 films—respond to the main theme, The Future Worth Living In. The remaining 4,929 entered the open competition, which has no thematic restrictions.
“Just a few months ago, we were launching an international competition, and today we have received more than 8,000 entries from 125 countries. These are no longer isolated AI experiments – we are seeing full-fledged films, complex stories, characters and entire universes. This scale shows how rapidly AI filmmaking is evolving. And today, Astana is bringing together one of the world’s largest international communities of creators working in this emerging field,” said Almaz Zhali.
$1 million in prizes, another $1 million for investment
The festival’s $2 million total fund supports two distinct purposes: competition awards and investment in teams.
Of the $1 million prize pool, $750,000 is allocated to the main thematic competition. The other $250,000 will be distributed across five open-category awards: Best Character, Best Directing, Best Visual Language, Best Story and Best Concept.
A separate $1 million investment fund has been provided by Balaji Srinivasan, the entrepreneur and investor who previously served as Chief Technology Officer of Coinbase and a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. He is also the founder of The Network School.
The investment is intended to help selected teams continue production beyond the festival and develop their projects in Kazakhstan. They will also have the opportunity to join Astana Hub, the country’s technology startup hub.
“We want strong projects to continue beyond the festival. That is why, alongside the prize pool, we have established a dedicated investment fund. It will enable creators to continue production, scale their projects and develop them further in Kazakhstan. Selected teams will also have the opportunity to join Astana Hub,” said Aizat Kusainov.
The longest entry runs for more than four hours
The submitted films have a combined runtime of more than 100,000 minutes. The longest runs for four hours and three minutes.
Across 19 genres, entrants have experimented with storytelling, visual styles and fictional worlds as well as generative technology. According to the organizers, one film brings five distinct universes together within a single work.
Entrants include emerging filmmakers and independent teams alongside established AI creators. Among them are The DOR Brothers, an AI production studio; Gossip Goblin, a project by director Zack London; and Robert Gaudette, whose work has been featured and recognized at international film festivals.
All submitted films undergo mandatory plagiarism screening.
Organizers estimate AI tool spending exceeded $4 million
The organizers’ preliminary estimate puts entrants’ collective spending on more than 80 generative models at over $4 million. That figure concerns the use of generative tools, rather than the films’ total production budgets.
The reported spending illustrates a practical aspect of AI filmmaking: access to generation tools remains a production expense, even when software creates much of the imagery, audio or music.
Twenty-five finalists will receive additional support through one year of access to the DRAMAGIC content-generation platform, together with a package of 60,000 credits.
Freedom Holding Corp. is the festival’s General Partner. Its technology partner is BytePlus, ByteDance’s enterprise technology platform.
Finalists will reach cinema audiences in October
According to the organizers, the jury includes former UNESCO Director-General and former French Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay; Ma Ping, Dean of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence Research at China Film Group; Wang Hao, Deputy Dean of the Animation Faculty at Beijing Film Academy; Balaji Srinivasan; and a BytePlus representative.
The festival will take place during AI Month, a series of events dedicated to artificial intelligence in Astana. Finalists’ films will be screened at Chaplin cinemas, giving audiences the opportunity to see the selected work on a theatrical screen.
The program also includes business sessions, panel discussions and masterclasses for filmmakers and industry professionals. Winners will be announced on October 3.
The festival’s international partnerships were taking shape earlier this year, when we reported on Kazakhstan and China’s agreement to develop cooperation in AI-powered film and television.
