About Nikolay Shestak
Nikolay Shestak is a Latvian filmmaker who writes, directs, edits and produces his own films through his company, SIA SHESTAK. A former actor, he began directing about four years ago and has been making AI-assisted films for about two years (as reported in Qazinform’s coverage of the Astana festival).
His channel, Shestak, describes its project in its own words as “the cinema of a new generation” — scripts developed with AI in the spirit of iconic directors, then brought to life with professional actors, cinematographers and directors. “The First Honest Day”, his film on Kineograph, is the work that carried that experiment onto the biggest AI-film stage yet: at the first Astana AI Film Festival (AAIFF 2026, Astana, Kazakhstan), a five-member jury selected it from the ten finalists of the main competition and awarded it the Grand Prix — $450,000 — from a festival field of 8,067 entries sent from 125 countries. The film’s stated tools are Seedance, Midjourney, Seedream, ChatGPT, Claude and Suno, with edit and colour in DaVinci Resolve.
On Kineograph: Final Score 8.3/10 — AI Slop Meter: Mostly clean (on the film post).
[TO FILL IN: anything you would like added here — send it through the Contact page and we will update your profile.]
Featured Work
One New York morning, people’s faces begin reacting to what they truly intend — and a news anchor, live on air, becomes the story she is supposed to be reading. Grand Prix winner, Astana AI Film Festival 2026.
Where To Find Them
Nikolay Shestak publishes as Shestak on YouTube. Press and festival enquiries, from his own film description: shestak.mov@gmail.com.
