Lights, camera, algorithm: First fully AI-generated film set to premiere at Tribeca Festival

A film entirely generated by artificial intelligence will make its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on June 10, marking the first time an AI-created live-action feature has been accepted into a major festival’s official lineup. *Dreams of Violets*, a 75-minute docudrama directed by Ash and Pooya Koosha, dramatizes a fictionalized account of a civilian massacre in Iran, inspired by real events from 47 years of Iranian civilian resistance. The Koosha brothers, who were born in Iran and left in 2009, produced the film on a $2,000 budget over three months. They explained that traditional filmmaking—with actors, sets, and locations—was impossible due to their exile and lack of access to Iran. Ash Koosha stated in a director’s note that the AI pipeline allowed them to create a memorial film for events they could not otherwise document. The film follows five Iranians who meet in an alley in Tehran before being executed, witnessed by a 10-year-old boy with cerebral palsy. While the visuals and characters are AI-generated, the story is based on photographs, journalistic reports, and eyewitness accounts of a real massacre that occurred this January. The project reflects growing industry debates about AI in filmmaking. While some figures like Steven Soderbergh have embraced the technology, others—including actors like Matthew McConaughey and Cate Blanchett—have raised concerns about its ethical and economic implications, such as the potential to replicate actors posthumously or displace human labor. The Koosha brothers acknowledged these concerns, noting their own worries about the unknown consequences for filmmakers’ livelihoods.