Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — The Astana AI Film Festival (AAIFF 2026), an international festival of films created with the help of artificial intelligence, will be held in Astana from 1 to 3 October.
The competition received 8,067 entries from 125 countries, and the festival's total prize and investment fund will amount to US$2 million.
AAIFF 2026 will be held as part of AI MONTH and Kazakhstan's Year of Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, and will also form part of AI & Digital Bridge 2026.
Over three days, the competition finalists, the international jury and the festival's partners will gather in Astana. The competition films will be shown to audiences free of charge on the big screen.
The United States leads by number of entries, followed by Kazakhstan. In total, Kazakh authors submitted 829 works.
The top ten countries also included India, China, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Japan, Brazil and France.
Participants submitted short films lasting from three minutes. One of the competition's main conditions is the full AI format, under which artificial intelligence must be the main part of the filmmaking process. All works undergo a mandatory plagiarism check.
The main competition programme is held under the theme "The Future Worth Living In". Its prize fund stands at US$750,000. The winner will receive US$450,000, and the authors of the films taking second and third places will receive US$200,000 and US$100,000 respectively.
A further US$250,000 is provided for the open section. Five winners will receive US$50,000 each in the categories Best Character, Best Directing, Best Visual Language, Best Story and Best Concept.
The remaining US$1 million will go towards investments in the most promising teams in the competition programme. The investment capital was provided by Balaji Srinivasan, former chief technology officer of Coinbase, former general partner at the a16z venture fund and founder of The Network School.
The quality of the works, their level of execution and their potential in AI production will be taken into account when selecting teams. The investment recipients will register legal entities in Kazakhstan and become members of Astana Hub.
The international 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 the Beijing Film Academy, Balaji Srinivasan and a representative of BytePlus.
The festival's technology partner is BytePlus, the B2B arm of ByteDance. Under the partnership, 25 finalists will receive a one-year subscription to the DRAMAGIC content generation platform with a package of 60,000 credits.
Screenings of the competition works will begin on 1 October at the Chaplin cinema. They can be attended free of charge with a pre-obtained ticket. The programme will also include an opening ceremony and a gala dinner with an awards ceremony for the winners. The competition results will be announced on 3 October at AI & Digital Bridge 2026.
The festival will be represented at the AI & Digital Bridge 2026 venue with a separate stand and a business programme within the Creative Bridge track, devoted to the impact of artificial intelligence on cinema, music, visual art, media, fashion and storytelling.
AI & Digital Bridge 2026 is expected to bring together more than 20,000 participants and over 100 technology companies. The forum programme also includes business sessions, a technology exhibition, Startup Alley, the Astana Hub Battle final, the AI & Digital Bridge Awards, demonstrations of AI solutions and robotics, and projects in the creative industries and GameDev.
A special programme for heads of state bodies, international delegations and representatives of the technology industry is planned for 1 October. On 2–3 October, the forum will be open to ticket holders.
