Cost 2000 US Dollars: First AI-generated feature film at Filmfestival

At the renowned Tribeca Film Festival in New York, the first fully AI-generated feature film will be shown with “Dreams of Violets”. He is part of the official program as the two producers of the film have made public. For production, there were allegedly just $2,000 (approximately 1700 euros). The film is a “fictive dramatization of the events surrounding the massacre of Iranian civilians by Iranian government troops in January, where thousands of Iranians were allegedly killed”. This brings together two major themes of the history of time: the AI-Hype and the events in the Islamic Republic. The film is 75 minutes long and gives the impression of being shot with real people in Tehran.

Recommended editorial content

With your consent, an external YouTube video (Google Ireland Limited) is loaded here.

I agree that external content is displayed to me. This allows personal data to be transmitted to third-party platforms (Google Ireland Limited). More in our privacy policy.

In “Dreams of Violets” (“Dreams of Violets”), the events in January are counted on the basis of five people: “In the dawn, while Iranian armed forces are hosting wounded demonstrators, a violent soldier discovers the five who are hidden in a dead end. Above them, Amir, a child in a wheelchair, observes the scene from a window and decides to act.” Each picture is AI-generated, but the producers assure that the film is based on journalistic reports, photos and reports from eyewitnesses. The result is “just as realistic as films produced by people in a conventional way”.

Impossible to realize

The film was produced by Ash and Pooya Koosha, two brothers from Tehran. Both left the country in 2009 and asked for asylum in the United Kingdom after Ash participated as a musician in the film “Perserkatzen knows no one”. That's why the regime had targeted him. “Dreams of Violets” is now her first own film. History is personally important to them because they have experienced violence in Iran themselves. It is not a technical exercise, Ash assured the Hollywood reporter. He would rather have realized the film with a crew, with people and with the “worship of a real production”: “But it wasn’t available to me.” AI technology has made something possible, which was otherwise simply impossible. Among other things, Google’s Nano Banana and Kling AI were used for the generation of the video, Claude AI for language processing and Gemini for research.

Video by heise

In addition to his actual job, Ash created the film at night on the computer, the responsible people explained. What would cost two million US dollars, so it cost only 2000. So the working time was not included. With the same technique, the cost of a large Hollywood film could be almost reduced to 0 from $200 million, they still claim. This would allow a stream of new films to help his company. It shall bear the name ‘Fountain 0’. Ash underlined that he was aware of the fears of creatives. “Dreams of Violets” adds a new chapter to the story of AI using the events in Iran: After the air raids against the country, KI-Propaganda created there had caused a stir that puts on a Lego aesthetic with a high recognition value.

(mho)