Tribeca accepts fully AI-generated film as Hollywood’s discomfort with automation grows
An entirely AI-generated movie has officially made its way into a major film festival. Whether that sounds exciting or mildly dystopian probably depends on how strongly you feel about humans still being involved in art.
Tribeca Film Festival has accepted Dreams of Violets into its 2026 lineup. Making it the first fully AI-generated live-action feature film to screen as part of an official festival programme.
The 75-minute docudrama, created by Iranian filmmakers Ash and Pooya Koosha, was reportedly made over three months on a budget of just $2,000.
The Koosha brothers have been clear that this wasn’t some tech-bro experiment designed to show off AI capabilities.
Ash Koosha, who left Iran in 2009 and now lives in exile, said he simply did not have access to the locations, crews or people needed to make the film conventionally.
In that context, AI becomes less of a gimmick and more of a workaround. A way to tell a story that otherwise may never have been made at all.
But even with that explanation, the reaction to Tribeca embracing the project is likely to be divided. Especially in an industry already exhausted by the relentless push toward automation disguised as innovation.
Once fully AI-generated features start appearing in prestigious festivals, it stops feeling like an experiment and starts looking like the beginning of a new production model.
Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal defended the film as an example of “deeply human storytelling,”. Arguing the technology allowed the filmmakers to depict events they otherwise could not physically access.
That may well be true. But it dodges the discomfort hanging over AI-generated art entirely: audiences are being asked to emotionally connect with images generated by systems trained on enormous amounts of existing creative work.
The film itself follows five Iranians awaiting execution after a civilian massacre. Witnessed by a child watching from a nearby apartment.
That contradiction sits at the centre of the entire debate. The subject matter is deeply human, but the process used to portray it is almost entirely synthetic.
