AI-generated film about Iranian resistance set to premiere at Tribeca Festival

Tribeca Festival is defending the inclusion of a full-length AI-generated movie in its lineup this year.

Dreams of Violets, a 74-minute film about the Iranian resistance, was made with no cameras and no actors. Instead, filmmakers Ash and Pooya Koosha used AI tools to create the movie at a cost of just $2,000 US.

A trailer for Dreams of Violets posted to YouTube Wednesday describes the film as a "docudrama feature inspired by real events from 47 years of Iranian civilian resistance."

"Through the eyes of five strangers, it brings protest footage to life with raw immediacy," the description continues. "At dawn, as Iranian forces execute wounded protesters, a violent soldier discovers the five hiding in a dead-end alley. Above them, Amir, a child in a wheelchair, watches from a window and decides to act."

Iran has seen widespread and severe protests against its regime in the last few years over the actions of its morality police, mandatory hijabs and a faltering economy, among other issues.

An overwhelming majority of comments on Dreams of Violets trailer denounced the film for its use of AI.

Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal dismissed concerns, telling CBC News in a statement that the film is both timely and appealing.

"The Tribeca Festival has long championed artists who push the boundaries of storytelling and explore new creative frontiers," she said.

Rosenthal called the film "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."

She said the festival's organizers were moved not just by "the technological achievement, but the emotional immediacy and urgency of the story itself."

Dreams of Violets is set to premiere on June 10 in New York City, but it is by no means the first film to generate debate over AI's inclusion in media. Some high-profile creators have championed its inclusion, while others have denounced it.

Director Darren Aronofsky has embraced AI through his studio, Primordial Soup, which has created a series of AI-generated short videos on the American Revolution. Director Steven Soderbergh has defended use of Meta AI software in his 2026 documentary about John Lennon, which debuted earlier this month at Cannes Film Festival.

However, AI production company Particle6 generated backlash while promoting Tilly Norwood, a fully AI-generated "actress" it hoped to market as a star. And director James Cameron has said AI will never replace actors and artists in his films, a sentiment echoed by filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro, who said he’d "rather die" than use generative AI.

But Dreams of Violets director and writer Ash Koosha said he sees AI as a type of storytelling comparable to animated media.

"This is a specific genre, at least for me," Koosha told CBC News.

Koosha, who’s from Tehran, but now lives in London, U.K., said hearing news in January about the Iranian regime killing protesters prompted him to make the film.

He made it during evenings and weekends, using tools like Kling AI, Claude, Google Gemini and Nano Banana that he says allowed him to make changes quickly and cheaply.

Koosha is the founder of Fountain 0, a company for AI-generated films and television series. Dreams of Violets is the company's first film.

He said the cost, difficult subject matter and production time of a traditional, non-AI film on Iranian protests would have made it an impossible project for him.

But Kate Ziegler, president of Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) Toronto, said she's worried about AI taking people's jobs and damaging "the creative spirit of the humanity in us."

She called for a broader conversation across industries on the effects of AI.

"Our industry, the film and television sector, it is a canary in the coal mine on this," she said.

The emergence of AI means film festivals face a difficult balancing act, said Richard Lachman, a professor of digital media at Toronto Metropolitan University and author of Digital Wisdom: Searching for Agency in the Age of AI.

On the one hand, he said, there’s been vocal pushback within the industry, but on the other, the technology has the potential to open up access to filmmaking.

"This film was made for $2,000 [US], and it’s in festival competition. So there’s a democratizing effect," he said.

"You don’t have access to a huge film crew and sets and A-list actors? Well, you can still make your unique point of view and get it in a film festival."

But Lachman said he has concerns about how audiences will interpret AI content that looks real.

"We have a lot of expectations of, if it looks like a person, if it looks like photojournalism footage, then I’m going to interpret it as photojournalism footage," he said.

"So I’m a little worried about just cautioning everyone ‘don’t believe what you see' because then we won’t be able to believe real news footage in the same way."