First Fully AI-Generated Feature Film to Screen at Tribeca, Created Solo for $2,000

The film "Dreams of Violets" is scheduled to screen at the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday. Business Insider reported that the 75-minute production is the first fully AI-generated feature film accepted by the festival. Ash Koosha, 40, created the film almost entirely alone from his London flat.

He used Anthropic's Claude and other AI tools to generate video elements that would otherwise have required actors, costume designers, location scouts, and camera operators. Koosha, an Iranian exile and CEO of a tech-infrastructure startup, wrote the script himself and voiced six characters, including a woman and a child. He said he used a basic voice changer to adjust for gender and age.

"I didn't need anyone to do this. Not a single employee," Koosha said. "I am the pure 100% decider of the output. " The film cost about $2,000 to produce, according to Koosha. He said the budget consisted largely of subscription fees for AI tools he normally pays for, plus some additional usage credits.

He produced the film in roughly two months and said he could have completed it in three weeks without his day job. "Dreams of Violets" follows five strangers hiding from a violent soldier during a protest crackdown while a child in a wheelchair witnesses their plight and decides to intervene. It is set in Tehran and was inspired by real events from 47 years of civilian resistance.

Koosha said he created the film as a memorial to victims of the Iranian government's January crackdown on protesters. "I've been subject to the prosecution, the brutality in Iran," he told Business Insider. Koosha previously played the lead role in the 2009 film "No One Knows About Persian Cats," which won a Cannes award.

He said he unsuccessfully attempted to direct a feature film in 2015 because it required more than he could afford or technically execute at the time. Koosha said AI is not eliminating filmmaking expertise but changing how that expertise is applied.

He said workers who once handled physical production tasks may instead spend more time on research, world-building, image generation, and creative decision-making.

For his next film, Koosha said he plans to hire five individuals who will use AI just as he did. "Those are new jobs, and they require cinema experience," he said.