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Posted on 05/27/2026 1:53:42 PM PDT by sphinx
The 2026 Tribeca Festival has set the world premiere of “Dreams of Violets,” a fully AI-generated film produced by studio Fountain 0 aimed at showcasing Iranian civilian resistance.
The film’s premiere at Tribeca marks the first full-length, live-action film generated by AI to be accepted by a marquee film festival, according to Fountain 0.
The project took three months — built entirely using tools such as Kling AI for video generation, Anthropic’s Claude AI for language-related editing, Google’s Gemini and Nanobanana for research and imagery and Fountain 0’s own technology for blocking and frame accuracy, according to the company — all from Koosha’s home in London. The film was “not a technological exercise,” Koosha said, but a bid to “create a memorial film for an event that happened behind a wall I cannot cross.”
(Excerpt) Read more at variety.com ...
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Three months to make. All AI. There have been experiments before, but Variety reports that this is the first time a semi-prominent film festival has accepted one as a feature film selection.
Now everything depends on whether audiences will accept the form. If audiences accept it, the streamers will shift quickly because they're selling subscriptions and harvesting data. They will always prefer the cheapest possible clickbait that keeps the couch potato zombies staring at the screen.
A lot of freepers will say good. Let Hollywood die. Let the whole film industry die. But that misses the point. The upcoming generations are more addicted to screens than ever. They are going to be watching SOMETHING. What they watch makes a difference, and many people are already in open revolt against the reality principle because they have lost touch with the real world. This isn't about the film industry per se. It's about the culture war and the loss of the capacity to deal with limits and opposing points of view. Movies and tv are just one front in the larger war.
So yes, this crosses a line, but let's be precise about exactly what the line is. We have always understood novels, short stories, screenplays, drama as written on the page, NOT as performed, and paintings as in principle the unconstrained product of a single person's imagination.
Theater as performed on stage always involved a collaborative effort ranging from the producers (who rounded up the money), the writer, the director, and the actors, with an ensemble of support people in the myriad stage craft jobs. Traditional movies were also collaborative.
We have traditionally tended to think of the "magic" of the live stage or of great cinema to arise from the interplay of all these creative collaborators: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If it's not, why go? Just stay home and read the book if the movie is just a straight projection of the writer's imagination. As augmented by AI, which will probably soon largely take over most of the research, writing, "thinking," and reflection as well.
If cinema is to survive, audiences have to decide whether they're ready to invest a couple of hours in watching the director's projection on screen, when they could probably read the same substantive content in 15 minutes or less. Of course, that's assuming the next generations will still be literate; we seem to be seriously regressing on that score.
I have no idea who Ash Koosha is. The article says he's from Tehran, but where he lives now, I have no idea. If he has a first hand account of the events depicted in Iran, I might invest a couple of minutes scanning his story, or perhaps even watch a podcast with some podcaster I've come to know and follow. But the moment I introduce a podcaster, one for whom I have some respect, I have automatically introduced a second critical intelligence into the discussion. The podcaster becomes my screener who tells me that this guy has something worth listening to.
AI generated pop music has already made inroads in various playlists. Obviously there are no real bands and no concerts involved; it's just noise produced for people who don't particularly care what they're listening to, because they aren't really paying attention anyhow.
Ash Koosha made this in three months for a reported $2,000. At the rate we're going, in a couple of years everyone will be able to enter a few prompts into his computer or smartphone and tell the AI to make a bespoke movie. And what used to be cinema will collapse into an endless conversation with oneself.
This is creative entropy carried to the end point. It's like the heat death of the universe in physics. We won't even know who designed and programmed the underlying AI systems, which will have escaped the leash and be self-creating at that point. Just people endlessly staring into the screen at their own reflections like Narcissus staring into the pond. No surprise, no creativity, no learning, no grappling with real conflict, which requires real antagonists, not figments of my own imagination set up as NPC's. No real stakes, nothing to gain, nothing to lose, no comedy (because I can't laugh endlessly at my own jokes; comedy takes surprise), no tragedy (just wish fulfillment and ego gratification).
We may soon be catching up to the limits of dystopian sci-fi. The question is how many functional human beings will remain outside the Borg, which has captured everyone else in an endless dopamine loop. But the people inside the Borg will still vote (or their votes will be harvested by the machines). That's why it's our problem. Why are so many young people confused about gender? Why do they not know what Hamas is? Why do substantial majorities of the young now think socialism is a good idea and don't recognize that AOC, Bernie Sanders, Mamdani, etc. are loons? Well ... where are they getting their ideas about how the world works?
Movie list/culture war ping.
Note: the director of this AI generated “docudrama is from Tehran. The film is apparently anti-regime and pro-the demonstrators. He may be one of the good guys, as most of us pick sides. I may like what he produces substantively.
The larger issue, however, is the technology that is now escaping the Pandora’s Box. And the possible death of movies will be a symptom of a much larger collapse.
How can something be live action and AI generated?
*Exactly* my question.
It’s either live action *or* AI slop. It can’t be both.
If AI gets rid of brainless celebrities spouting off their pointless opinions, I’m in favor of it.
So, as it is now, as long as the AI generated “stars” remain a-political, it could be a win. Has SAG weighed in? Loss of income. I hear the AI “stars” work cheap. 🤔😳😂👍
Good question. My guess is that the author’s intended distinction (which is certainly not made clear) is between animated, cartoon-like characters and live actors. Disney gives us the easy example. In the Days of Walt, a long time ago, the company was built on animated cartoons. Everyone understood that what was onscreen was a product of the animators’ art. Now AI is faking the live actors as well. The thing looks like live action, but it is all an animation.
It will be interesting to see how it is labeled and marketed. There should probably be prominent warning labels to the effect of: “AI animated movie. There are no live actors involved.” It’s all nothing more than the director’s own self-projection, animated by a computer program.
The 2026 Tribeca Festival has set the world premiere of “Dreams of Violets,” a fully AI-generated film produced by studio Fountain 0 aimed at showcasing Iranian civilian resistance. Didn’t the Pope warn about AI?
Most of the movies are so creepy that AI can’t be worse.
The underlying question is whether such movies will be promoted at all.
The brainless celebrities spouting off their pointless opinions -- as opposed to the ones who are smart enough to keep their mouths shut on politics and stick to discussions of the film itself, and the making of it, where they have something to offer -- are an artifact of the promotional circuit (which most actors regard as an ordeal) arranged by the studio to generate publicity.
No actors, no interviews? Maybe. Or maybe we will get simulated interviews with AI faked interviews "interviewing" AI generated "actors" for the viewing pleasure of the couch potato audience.
Such a movie is basically an animated book or op-ed. The only interview that matters would be with the author. Which is now the person who fed the prompts into his computer program.
Some books are worth reading, just as some movies are worth seeing and some music is worth listening to. But how do we ever find out about them if the public conversation breaks down?
The culture is becoming increasingly self-referential. Literature, drama, cinema, all the performing arts are ways of inducing people to step outside of themselves and engage in a shared experience.
This fellow presumably made this movie because he thought he had something to say about the situation in Iran. It looks as if he's anti-the mullahs, so good for him. But if he has something to say, and goes to the trouble of making a movie to say it, how does he attract an audience? He has to promote it.
If AI puts the bulk of those Hollywood limosine leftards or cabriolet commies out of work that’s fine by me. It’s not like Theres much of value at risk here
Appears one of the primary casualties of AI generated films could be the “casting couch”......../s.
The listen to me I’m important factor is going to become more and more laughable.
Very few movies rise to the level of great art, but those are worthy of being seen. A considerable number are good enough to be keepers. Most are forgettable, and some are actively bad.
But ALL movies, even the bad ones, have to date been collaborative. A writer has to come up with the idea. Some investors have to put some money on the line; it's the producers job to round them up, and then assemble the rest of the team. A director has to sign on. A cast has to be assembled. Then a considerable number of behind the camera people, many highly skilled, have to come aboard.
That's a lot of people involved in the discussions. All of them are getting paid, yes ... but they're also investing their time and energy and talents in a project, and if it's an embarrassing flop, it can be career ending for some of them. So all of them have an eye on what audiences will buy; the audience is the silent partner in the conversation.
If these are all capable, intelligent, creative people, what they come up with collectively can be considerably better than what any of them would come up with themselves. Once we move beyond low effort cash grab junk, that synergy is always what the good people in the industry are trying to achieve.
Sometimes they succeed, and we get a movie that goes on the GOAT lists.
The most common expression of this is perhaps the writer or the director -- sometimes the writer-director team of one -- who will say in interviews that he loved the concept, was satisfied with what he had on paper, and had a vision ... but it wasn't until some gifted actors breathed life into the characters that he fully appreciated the potential. Actors often say the same kind of thing in reverse. And sometimes we get remakes, or revivals on the long stage, where a different director and different set of actors take exactly the same script, without any changes at all in the words or the scenes, and get a stunning different interpretation out of it.
That's why the magic hides. Here's one example:
The one you've seen, from the movie: Liza Minelli, Life is a Cabaret
One you probably haven't seen, from the live stage: Jane Horrocks, Life is a Cabaret
The theatrical version, btw, is probably closer to the spirit of the original play. The descent into madness, after all, is what the story is about.
I hate predictive AI, which keeps sneaking in no matter how many times I turn it off. “Long stage”=live stage.
AI is still pretty stupid at a lot of things. Which may help keep the theater arts alive a little longer.
But the streamers seem determined to dumb down the audiences because they’re in the subscription and data harvesting businesses, and couch potato zombie viewers are easier targets for the cheap AI slop. The streamers are now making clickbait movies for people who aren’t paying attention, and it shows. But such movies are cheap to make.
This is all just inevitable. Lots of AI-generated stuff will be crap, but some of it will be really good. Just like movies with human actors.
The difference is that the volume of AI generated media will be mindblowing and will swamps whats out there. On the other hand, if you have ideas for stories and/or films, this would be a great way to experiment for pennies on the dollar.
I’ve had an idea for a music video I’ve been daydreaming about for 40 years. After I retire (soon), I will use AI to take a whack at it. I doubt it will go viral (especially since the theme/song are very retro, but I want to see it realized before I die).
I don’t see it as other than another form of animation.
Are you sure about that?
An AI actor won’t go on interviews and trash the ticket buyers.
The 95-minute action-fantasy movie Hell Grind cost $500,000 to produce in 15 weeks and screened in Cannes.
Please note the use of the term “in Cannes” and not “at Cannes.” Hell Grind did not screen at the Cannes Film Festival. Rather, it screened in the city of Cannes during the festival.
Either way, it is practically guaranteed that in the decades to come, Hell Grind will have more impact on the future of movies, entertainment, and culture than all the tedious, gay romance titles that screened at Cannes this year.
Put your prejudices aside and watch the first 22 minutes here:
Watch on YouTube
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