Strings
STRINGS
Directed by Hooroo Jackson
Premiered February 28, 2026
Budget: Under $1,000 | Crew: One
The first completely AI photoreal live-action passing feature film in the history of cinema. The first film ever released with a randomized ending.
In the Antebellum South, four sisters of the Beaufort family orbit the rigid social world of their father’s plantation. The youngest, Nellie — tomboyish, imaginative, subversive — discovers Daniel Brock, a gifted Black master puppeteer whose artistry ignites something in her she cannot contain. What begins as a secret artistic collaboration deepens into something far more dangerous, and their bond becomes the fault line that cracks the world around them.
One version of their story ends in joy. One ends in tragedy. The film decides which one you receive. There is no choice. There is no warning.
TWO FIRSTS
Live-Action Passing Threshold Strings is the first AI-generated feature where photoreal machine performances are indistinguishable from real human actors at feature length. Its lead character, Nellie Beaufort, passes for one hundred percent of the film — a sustained live-action AI performance without precedent. The industrial apparatus that has justified the existence of studios, crews, equipment, budgets, and the entire economic infrastructure of filmmaking for over a century is now provably unnecessary for the production of live-action feature-length cinema.
Randomized Ending The first film in the history of the moving image where the audience does not know which ending they will receive. An algorithm selects it. The happy ending. The tragic ending. No asterisks. No qualifications. No one has ever done it. The film literally breathes. It changes. It is not fixed. It is alive in exactly the way Jackson theorized a film could be in his essay “The Living, Breathing Cinema.”
THE SIXTH FEATURE
Strings is Jackson’s sixth landmark release in thirty-two months, closing the founding era of AI cinema:
Window Seat (July 2023) — First fully AI feature film. Budget: $100.
DreadClub: Vampire’s Verdict (July 2024) — First fully AI animated feature + first AI anime feature. Budget: $405.
A Very Long Carriage Ride (April 2025) — First simultaneous dual-style release. Budget: $2,000.
My Boyfriend Is a Superhero!? (November 2025) — First fully AI 3D-CG feature + first choose-your-protagonist feature. Budget: $1,000.
The New Machine Cinema (December 2025) — 74-minute documentary.
Strings (February 2026) — First AI photoreal live-action passing feature + first randomized-ending feature. Budget: Under $1,000.
Six features. Six formats. Nine documented firsts. Three volumes of theory. Total combined budget: under $5,000. Total crew: one person.
CLIPS
Clip 1: https://youtu.be/nOWcjnq4S74 Clip 2: https://youtu.be/lyGKuvzoCYw
NOW STREAMING
Strings is streaming on YouTube and hooroojackson.com.
Your ending awaits.
Date:
March 1, 2026
