“Dreams of Violets,” a 75-minute fictional dramatization about Iran’s January crackdown on anti-government protesters, is set to premiere at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Multiple outlets report that the film is generated entirely with AI tools, with all characters and images created by artificial intelligence rather than using human actors, cameras, sets, or traditional crews. The director, Iranian-British filmmaker Ash Koosha, created the project from his home in London, where he says it was too unsafe to film inside Iran. Sources describe the story as a dramatization based on journalistic reporting, video material, photographs, and eyewitness accounts, while also emphasizing that the work is not a documentary. Several reports say the film took about three months to produce and had a reported production cost of under $2,000. Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal publicly defends the decision to screen the AI-made feature, while the film is also prompting renewed industry debate about whether AI can represent human stories and whether it expands access to filmmaking or threatens parts of the industry.
Tribeca to premiere fully AI-generated Iran protest drama “Dreams of Violets”
“Dreams of Violets,” a 75-minute fictional dramatization about Iran’s January crackdown on anti-government protesters, is set to premiere at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Multiple outlet...
- Tribeca Festival will premiere “Dreams of Violets,” a fully AI-generated 75-minute feature film about Iran’s January protest crackdown.
- The film is fictional but based on journalistic reports, photos/video, and eyewitness accounts.
- Director Ash Koosha says he creates the film from London and uses AI because filming inside Iran is too dangerous.
- Reports describe a rapid production timeline (about three months) and a very low budget (reported as under $2,000).
- Tribeca leadership defends the premiere, and the screening renews debate about AI’s role in filmmaking and storytelling.
When "Dreams of Violets" premieres tomorrow night at the Tribeca Film Festival, Hollywood will face its boogeyman. That’s because "Dreams of Violets" will be the first movie completely generated by AI to be part of a major festival's lineup.
10 hours agoA film about Iran's protest movement is making cinema history. "Dreams of Violets" is the first fully AI-generated feature film ever selected by a major international film festival. The 75-minute drama will premiere at New York's Tribeca Festival next week. Created by Iranian-British director Ash Koosha from his home in London, the film took just three months to produce and cost less than 2,000 euros. There were no actors, no cameras, no sets and no film crew. Koosha says the film simply could not have been made through conventional means. Living in exile and unable to safely film inside Iran, he turned to AI to recreate events linked to the country's deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters. The film is based on journalistic reports, photographs and eyewitness accounts, and explores themes of memory, censorship and resistance. But as Tribeca becomes the first major festival to embrace a fully AI-generated feature, the film is also reigniting a fierce debate. Can artificial intelligence tell deeply human stories? Does AI democratise filmmaking or threaten the future of the industry? Eve Jackson speaks to Ash Koosha about Iran, ethics and the future of cinema.
4 days agoIt should have taken years, but Ash Koosha made a drama about Iran’s anti-government protests in weeks – and now it’s the first AI-made movie to screen at a major film festival. It could transform indie film-making, claims the directorNext week a breakthrough 75-minute drama about the brutal crackdown in Iran on anti-government protesters in January will premiere at the Tribeca film festival in New York. It is called Dreams of Violets and is based on journalism, video footage and eyewitness accounts. “I would say 80% of it is a recreation of events that actually happened,” says its Iranian-British director Ash Koosha. But Dreams of Violets is a work of fiction, not a documentary: a drama following a group of strangers caught up in the protests, who meet by chance in an alleyway. How on earth has Koosha managed to pull together a drama about the killings in less than six months?The answer, it turns out, is by using artificial intelligence. Every image and character in Dreams of Violets is AI-generated. Koosha says he created the characters by describing their physical appearances, using people he has known in the past as references. It would be too dangerous to base characters on living people in Iran, he says. “Because of the security issue, it would not be safe for the characters to even remotely resemble someone.” Continue reading...
6 days agoTribeca Film Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal is defending the fest’s decision to premiere “Dreams of Violets,” a fully AI-generated film about the Iranian civilian resistance. “I think people need to read the director’s [Ash Koosha’s] statement,” Rosenthal told Variety at the festival’s 25th anniversary cocktail reception in lower Manhattan Monday night. “The director is Iranian […]
1 week ago"Dreams of Violets" is the first movie created entirely by artificial intelligence to debut at the Tribeca Film Festival. It's a fictional drama about five strangers who witnessed something very real, the massacre of Iranian civilians back in January. Ash Koosha, the film's director and producer, joins "The Daily Report" to discuss.
1 week agoDreams of Violets, a 75-minute docudrama from first-time filmmakers Ash and Prooya Koosha, was made entirely with AI tools.
1 week ago
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