I used AI. I'm an artist. I tried not to use it in a crass way.
At the intersection of grief, technology, and political urgency, a London-based Iranian-British director has done something the film world has long dreaded and quietly awaited: he made a feature film entirely with artificial intelligence and earned a place at one of cinema's most respected tables. Ash Koosha's Dreams of Violets, built from journalism and eyewitness accounts of Iran's brutal January crackdown, premieres at Tribeca next week — not as a stunt, but as a work of witness. The film cost under two thousand dollars and took two and a half months, and its existence asks a question the industry can no longer defer: when a story demands to be told and traditional means are unavailable, does the tool matter more than the truth it carries?
- A filmmaker watched thirty thousand people die on his social media feed and decided that urgency outweighed every conventional barrier to production.
- By spending under $2,000 and working evenings from his CEO desk, Koosha collapsed a process that would normally require years and millions — and the industry is unsettled by how cleanly it worked.
- Tribeca's acceptance has cracked open a fault line: most major festivals refused to be first, and now that someone has been, the question of what counts as legitimate cinema is suddenly live.
- Actors, studios, and auteurs are fracturing in real time — Soderbergh is exploring the technology while del Toro says he would rather die than use it, and no consensus is forming fast enough to contain the disruption.
- Koosha is already designing a next step where real actors license their faces and voices and share in profits, attempting to thread the needle between democratization and displacement.
Ash Koosha watched the footage coming out of Iran in January — the protests, the crackdown, the estimates of more than thirty thousand dead — and felt something permanently shift. He had never made a political film. His background was music: bands in Tehran, two weeks in prison for organizing a festival where his group covered Arctic Monkeys songs, then London, then a career building AI technology. But the footage demanded a response, and he had a tool.
The result is Dreams of Violets, a seventy-five-minute drama following strangers who meet in an alleyway during the protests. Every frame is AI-generated. Every character is pixels shaped by algorithms. Koosha built the story from journalism and eyewitness accounts, estimating that eighty percent of what appears on screen recreates something that actually happened. He wrote the script by hand, composed the score himself, and used AI only to generate the visuals — the faces, the streets, the light. Traditional CGI would have cost millions. He spent under two thousand dollars and finished in two and a half months, working evenings while running his AI startup by day.
He voice-acted every role himself, then used AI to age or feminize the recordings as needed. The choice was partly practical and partly protective: basing characters on real people in Iran could have endangered them. The abstraction became a form of safety.
Next week, the film premieres at Tribeca — the first fully AI-generated live-action feature to screen in official selection at a major festival. Most festivals, Koosha found, wanted nothing to do with AI. "No one wants to be first," he said. Tribeca was willing, and the threshold has now been crossed.
Koosha is not an uncritical evangelist. He says he despises most AI films he has seen and distrusts filmmakers who use the technology to normalize mediocrity. He sees himself as a voice of reason — someone using AI not to replace craft but to tell a story that would otherwise go untold. He acknowledges that acting involves more than a face, and that some stories should never be touched by the technology.
Still, he believes the economics of filmmaking are about to transform completely. He imagines a world of micro-studios, of filmmakers who no longer need gatekeepers to access the means of production, of new jobs that don't yet have names. The industry is fracturing — some of its most celebrated directors are exploring generative AI while others refuse it entirely. Where it lands remains genuinely uncertain, but Dreams of Violets has made the question impossible to postpone.
Ash Koosha made a seventy-five-minute drama about Iran's anti-government crackdown in less than six months. Every frame is artificial intelligence. Every character exists only as pixels shaped by algorithms. Next week, Dreams of Violets will premiere at Tribeca, becoming the first fully AI-generated live-action feature to screen at a major film festival—a moment that has forced the industry to confront questions it has been avoiding.
The film follows strangers who meet by chance in an alleyway during the January protests in Iran. Koosha, an Iranian-British director based in London for nearly two decades, built the narrative from journalism, video footage, and eyewitness accounts. He estimates eighty percent of what appears on screen is a recreation of events that actually occurred. The crackdown was brutal. Estimates place the death toll above thirty thousand. For seventy-two hours before the internet blackout, footage flooded social media feeds. Koosha watched it unfold and something shifted. "This made me political," he said. "This is where I drew the line."
He had never made a political film before. His background was music—he played in bands in Tehran, was imprisoned for two weeks for organizing a music festival where his band covered Arctic Monkeys songs, then moved to London and continued making music while building a career in technology. He co-founded an AI startup called Claigrid and created an AI singer named Yona who wrote and performed her own work. In 2018, that felt like science fiction. By January this year, it felt like a tool he could use to tell a story that needed telling urgently.
The script was written by hand. Koosha used the chatbot Claude to refine language and structure his thoughts, but the narrative itself came from him. He composed the score and edited the film without AI assistance. What AI provided was the ability to generate every visual element—the characters, the streets, the light falling through windows—in a way that would have been impossible otherwise. Traditional CGI would have cost millions. Koosha spent under two thousand dollars. The timeline alone was transformative: what would have required a year or two of pre-production and financing happened in two and a half months, mostly in the evenings while he continued his day job as CEO of Claigrid.
Koosha voice-acted every role himself, then used AI to modify the recordings—aging his voice for an older man, feminizing it for a woman in her twenties. He chose this approach partly for safety. Basing characters on living people in Iran would have been dangerous. "Because of the security issue, it would not be safe for the characters to even remotely resemble someone," he explained. The abstraction that AI provided became a form of protection.
The film's acceptance at Tribeca marks a threshold. An AI action film called Hell Grind screened at Cannes last month, but outside the official selection. An all-AI animated feature, Where the Robots Grow, was released in 2024. But Dreams of Violets appears to be the first AI film accruing genuine artistic credibility at a prestigious festival. Koosha found that most traditional festivals wanted nothing to do with AI. "What I've realised is that no one wants to be first," he said. Tribeca was willing.
The implications ripple outward. Koosha sees AI filmmaking as a tool for democratization—a way to remove the financial and logistical barriers that keep independent filmmakers from telling stories that matter. He imagines a future where every filmmaker becomes their own studio, where the next Jodorowsky doesn't have to spend years proving themselves to gatekeepers before accessing a two-million-dollar budget. He also imagines a reshuffling of labor. For his next project, he plans to license real faces from actors, who would voice-act their own characters and share in the film's financial gains. "I think it's going to be a new world of opportunities for people," he said. A Rada-trained actor with twenty years of experience might object that acting involves more than a face. Koosha acknowledged the point. "That is a very valid point, and I think there are stories that I would never allow AI to touch, that we still need to do in the theatrical way."
He is not naive about the technology. He despises most AI films he has seen. "So far, I hate anything made that is made with AI. It disgusts me. I don't want to look at it. It gives me a headache." He mistrusts filmmakers who want audiences to accept mediocrity. "They want to make people get used to garbage," he said. "I'm somewhere in the middle trying to be the voice of reason." He used AI not to replace craft but to enable a story that would otherwise remain untold. The question now is whether audiences will accept AI characters as vessels for genuine emotion. Koosha points to Rick and Morty, to Pixar films that move people to tears. The character doesn't have to exist in order for the feeling to be real.
Hollywood is beginning to engage with the technology. Steven Soderbergh and Darren Aronofsky are exploring it. Gareth Edwards, who directed Jurassic World Rebirth and Rogue One, called generative AI a "genius" tool. Guillermo del Toro said he would "rather die" than use it. The industry is fracturing along lines that haven't yet solidified. Koosha believes the next decade will see a fundamental reshuffling—that the economics of filmmaking will transform so completely that a three-hundred-million-dollar Christopher Nolan production will no longer make sense. Mini-studios will proliferate. New jobs will emerge that don't yet have names. He predicts Fountain 0, his AI film studio, will create at least two hundred positions that didn't exist before. The future is uncertain, but it is arriving at the speed of news itself.
Citações Notáveis
This made me political. This is where I drew the line. I thought: you know what, I'm going to make the first film about this.— Ash Koosha, on watching footage of Iran's January crackdown
So far, I hate anything made that is made with AI. It disgusts me. I don't want to look at it. It gives me a headache.— Ash Koosha, on most AI films he has seen
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did you choose to make this film about Iran specifically, and why now?
I watched seventy-two hours of footage before the internet blackout. It was a bloodbath. I had never made a political film before, but something in me broke. I thought: this story needs to exist, and I have a tool that can make it exist quickly.
But couldn't you have made this film the traditional way? Found actors, raised money, shot on location?
It would have been impossible. Not just difficult—impossible. You can't shoot in Iran right now. You can't base characters on real people without putting them in danger. And it would have taken a year or two just to get financing and pre-production sorted. I made this in two and a half months for under two thousand dollars.
Do you think AI is going to replace actors?
No. I think it's going to create new opportunities for them. They can license their faces, voice-act their own characters, share in the profits. But I'm honest about it—there are stories that still need to be made the traditional way, with real bodies in real spaces. AI isn't the answer to everything.
You said you hate most AI films. Why make one yourself?
Because I hate what most people are doing with it. They're making garbage and trying to get audiences used to garbage. I used AI as a tool to tell a story that mattered, not to replace craft. There's a difference between using technology thoughtfully and just using it because you can.
What do you think the film industry looks like in ten years?
Completely different. The economics don't work anymore for three-hundred-million-dollar films. You'll see mini-studios everywhere. Every filmmaker becomes their own studio. The money gets reshuffled, hopefully more fairly. New jobs emerge that we don't even have names for yet.
Are you worried about backlash? About people saying this isn't real filmmaking?
I understand the skepticism. But people cry at Pixar movies. They feel real emotions watching animated characters. The question isn't whether the character exists—it's whether the story moves you. That's what matters.