A movie made entirely with artificial intelligence has become the first of its kind to be accepted into a film festival.
Dreams of Violets — the 75-minute docudrama movie generated by AI — has been programmed to make its world premiere June 10 at Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, making it the first AI-generated live-action feature-length film to make a festival’s official lineup, according to its production studio Fountain 0.
The movie, inspired by real events from 47 years of Iranian civilian resistance, was made on a $2,000 budget across three months by directors and producers Ash and Pooya Koosha.
The Koosha brothers, who were born in Iran and left the country in 2009, said that making a movie with no actors, sets or cameras was not what they initially had in mind.
“I want to be honest about why I made it the way I did,” Ash said in a director’s statement. “It was not a technological exercise. I would have preferred to make this film with a crew, with actors, with the dignity of a full production. That was not available to me. I am one person, in exile, with no access to Iran, no access to the locations, no access to the people.”
He wrote: “The AI pipeline made it possible to do what would otherwise have been impossible: to create a memorial film for an event that happened behind a wall I cannot cross.”
The project is a fictional dramatization of a massacre of civilians in January of this year. The film follows the story of five Iranians who meet in an alley in Tehran before being executed, which is witnessed from a window by a 10-year-old boy with cerebral palsy.
While the images and people in the movie are generated by AI, the dramatizations are based on pictures, journalistic reporting and eyewitness accounts.
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As the AI wave has found its way to Hollywood, the movie industry has been divided over the idea of the technology as a filmmaking tool. It was recently a hot topic at Cannes Film Festival, where filmmakers and actors like Steven Soderbergh and Demi Moore appeared to welcome the use of the tech and tell other industry staples to get used to it.
However, Hollywood writers have shared their fear over the developing tools as they have been used for tasks from speeding up film production to replicating late actors like Val Kilmer in posthumous projects. Other stars are taking other routes to push back against AI: Matthew McConaughey took legal action to protect his likeness and advised other actors to do the same. Cate Blanchett launched a non-profit organization to stop AI companies from using artists’ work without their permission.
Ash and Pooya said in a statement, “We fully understand the very genuine sensitivities of those individuals working in the movie industry, and like them we are worried what the unknown implications are for the livelihoods of many. New types of jobs will undoubtedly be created in the AI film generation world. But the reality is that this film never would have been made if it were not for the AI capabilities that we were able to develop.”
Jane Rosenthal, the co-founder of the Tribeca Festival, said in part in a statement: “The Tribeca Festival has long championed artists who push the boundaries of storytelling and explore new creative frontiers. Dreams of Violets from first-time filmmakers Ash and Pooya Koosha is a powerful example of how emerging technologies like AI can be used not simply as tools of innovation, but as vehicles for deeply human storytelling.”
“At this time in history when both artificial intelligence and Iran are central to global conversation, this film offers audiences a rare and intimate perspective into a conflict many have not been able to fully see or understand,” Rosenthal added. “What moved us was not just the technological achievement, but the emotional immediacy and urgency of the story itself.”
The 2026 Tribeca Film Festival is set to rune June 3 to 14 in New York City.