Top Industry Members Want Half of Studio Budgets to Go To Indies

On the heels of the Federal Film Incentive comes more promising news for independent creators and the industry at large.

Major players have come together in an effort to help protect original and independent content from mass media consolidation.

It’s called the American Entertainment Alliance, and it’s pushing for legislation that would require major studios and streamers like Netflix, Disney, and Skydance to allocate at least 50% of their original content budgets to independent productions.

Members include top agencies CAA, WME, and UTA, as well as producers like Blumhouse, Imagine, Legendary, North Road, and MRC.

To protect the future, these powerhouses are looking to the past.

In the 1970s and ‘80s, iconic shows like Seinfeld, Roseanne, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show were successful thanks in part to the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules of 1970, or ‘Fin-Syn’.

Regulated by the FCC, these rules kept major broadcasters ABC, CBS, and NBC from owning the shows they aired. They also weren’t allowed to control the shows’ syndication rights. This paved the way for independent talent and creator-led entities like Mary Tyler Moore’s MTM Enterprises, Castle Rock, and Lorimar Television.

‘Fin-Syn’ was repealed in the ‘90s with the rise of cable, when competition seemed more robust. Without these protections, however, media consolidation went up, making it harder for independent producers to thrive and leading to the contracted landscape we find ourselves in today.

Now that ‘peak TV’ has ended, the number of original TV series has fallen dramatically in the last few years. Currently, there are 41% fewer scripted submissions from independent producers than there were even four years ago. Mergers also make it more likely for studios to produce in-house content aired on networks, channels, and streaming services they own.

The AEA wants to ensure at least half their content comes from production companies outside the studio. This would allow more creators to own their work, which would in turn create more jobs and opportunity.

These days, there are fewer decision-makers controlling what gets made. Streamers already collect subscription fees and ad revenue. If they also own the content, it gives creators very little leverage.

The AEA wants to bring back a version of ‘Fin-Syn’ for the streaming era. If production companies own their own shows, they control licensing rights, which allows them to sell their show again to a different streamer. It would also give new life to shows that get cancelled, allowing them the opportunity to sell to another streamer.

The AEA is advocating for ‘modern creative ownership rules that reflect today’s streaming marketplace’. Because the FCC has little oversight when it comes to streaming, the alliance is proposing legislation as a solution. The goal is a regulatory framework to help drive competition and growth.

Much like the Federal Film Incentive, it’s also designed to support policies that would make the U.S. a more competitive production destination.

While it could face pushback from a divided Congress as well as the studios, which have lobbying power in Washington, the Federal Film Incentive might help pave the way for these additional protections. Members of the AEA are meeting with the backers of that bill, which could be adopted after the November midterms. The American Entertainment Alliance is hoping to introduce a bill of their own next year.

When creatives have more control over their work, it fuels more creative competition, which benefits everyone, not just a select few. Once again, cultivating independence is key to the future of film and TV.

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Case Study: How ‘Thelma’ Made a Universal Film Focused on Seniors

The Film Independent x Humana Foundation Shorts Initiative is supporting five Director and Producer teams to produce original shorts that authentically celebrate the vital roles and contributions of seniors to society, and raise awareness around the different issues that affect them today. An all-in budget of $100,000 will be provided for each film.

Applications are now open, and close on October 26, 2026.
The extended deadline for Film Independent Members is November 2, 2026.
To learn more about the program, click here.

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The team behind Thelma (2024) had a choice when it came to selling their film to audiences. “It’s not just for a senior audience. It’s also for middle-aged people for young people, people who can relate to the grandparent characters or the parent characters,” said producer Zoë Worth.

The film is about 93-year-old Thelma Post, who gets scammed into sending her life savings away when she thinks her grandson needs bail money. Once she finds out what happens, she decides to take matters into her own hands and get the money back. The film plays with action movie tropes and puts them in an age-appropriate context for what Thelma and her crew are going through.

We spoke with writer/director Josh Margolin and producers Zoë Worth and Chris Kaye about how they took the film from script to release and what other filmmakers can learn about making a specific film have a broad appeal.

L-R: Zoë Worth, Josh Margolin & Chris Kaye

Development and Financing

The idea came when writer/director Josh Margolin’s own grandmother almost got scammed. “I started imagining what might have happened if she if she had sent [the money to the scammers] and knowing her, the length she would have gone to get it back,” he said. He brought it to his creative circle, including Zoë Worth and Chris Kaye, and they all immediately responded to it. Once a script was ready, the team sent it to June Squibb through connections they had. Margolin and Squibb had an initial call that ended with the actress saying, “Ok, I’d like to do it.”

“That really lit a fire for us,” Margolin said. When it came to financing, “I think it was very clear who was in and who is out,” said Worth. The team insisted on having an actress in their nineties in the star role and found partners that aligned with that vision.

Production

Playing with action tropes meant that there would be stunts for the film’s lead performer. “It’s funny because some of the quote unquote stunts in this movie wouldn’t necessarily be fully designated stunts in a movie with a with an actor at a different age,” said Margolin. “Her rolling across the bed for our movie is kind of is dicey… Everything felt daunting because we felt responsible for the safety and well being of everybody while also trying to get the shots that would work and make sense for the movie.

“We tried to make sure we were really well rehearsed, really well covered, and really well practiced. We did very limited takes.”

The film shot in L.A. and despite not getting the California tax credit, they made their budget in other ways. The shoot used Margolin’s real grandmother’s house as well as the Motion Picture & Television Fund Retirement Home in Woodland Hills as its main locations, and were able to set dress the locations to double as other places like police stations. When shooting their exteriors, the had a small footprint and used permitting grids strategically so they could get as much variety as possible.

Festivals and Release Strategy

The film premiered at Sundance, and the team ended up going with Magnolia Pictures as its distributer based on its showing at the festival. The team was very conscious of how the film was going to be marketed, which went into that decision. “Whenever there was any conversation where somebody would be pitching us the kung-fu grandma version, we’d be like. ‘No, we can’t go towards that.’ The broadness is not why people are going to go see this movie,” said producer Chris Kaye. Magnolia helped the team tour the film in festivals all over the country. Having June Squibb leading a film for the first time in her career also generated organic news coverage.

Advice for Filmmakers with Senior-Focused Projects

For a film to be successful, you have to know why you want to tell a story. For the Thelma team, it was Margolin’s real-life experiences with his own grandmother, and the care he had for her. According to Worth, “It’s about giving dimensionality to your lead senior characters and acknowledging who you are as the as the author of said movie.”

“Don’t feel like you’re contorting yourself to take advantage of some opportunity, but you are instead setting out to make something you believe in,” added Margolin. “That guided us in many ways.”

Thelma is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+ and the filmmakers are working on a new comedy set to start shooting next year.

The Film Independent x Humana Foundation Shorts Initiative is supporting five Director and Producer teams to produce original shorts that authentically celebrate the vital roles and contributions of seniors to society and raise awareness around the different issues that affect them today. An all-in budget of $100,000 provided for each film.

Applications are now open, and close on October 26, 2026. There will be an extended deadline for Film Independent Members, which will be on November 2, 2026. To learn more about the program, click here.

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‘You Have the Juice’: Vertical and YouTube Creators Offline at the Film Independent Forum

“You have the juice,” I wrote in big letters and underlined twice in my Film Independent Forum notebook. Your girl loves merch. When asked for advice to filmmakers trying to “break in,” Alexander Ullom (Director, It Ends) reminded us to be steadfast in our creative visions and to remember, “you have the juice.” Something that is often forgotten between pitch meetings, network notes, and an endless sea of scripts waiting for a greenlight. At the Film Independent Forum, the throughline between the digital-focused panels was that these filmmakers didn’t wait for permission from studios and executives. They knew they had something, and carved out a path to bring it to their audience.

On the vertical storytelling panel, moderated by Wendy Calhoun (Executive Producer; The Rookie Feds, Empire), that meant experimenting with new formats. “Empire took the stage classic The Lion in Winter, with its Shakespearean succession stakes, and set it in the world of hip hop. A familiar classic, reimagined as a prime-time broadcast soap full of pop culture, felt fresh. Microseries play in this same sandbox,” says Calhoun, who also executive produces and directs microdramas.

Reframing the Narrative: Vertical Storytelling

In “Breaking the Big Screen,” moderated by Missy Laney (Film & TV producer), we heard from a generation of filmmakers who had the opportunity to learn, experiment and publish in real time, as part of the “YouTube Generation.” And part of publishing in real time is almost instant audience feedback. Digital creators have the ability to meet the audience where they are at the moment. Which means you can literally give the people exactly what they’re asking for. If you listen. This isn’t to say you should ignore your internal compass, but rather, trust yourself enough to hear the audience without losing what is true for you.

Vivian Wang (Writer; Sleeping With My Billionaire Enemy, Alpha King’s Mistake) tells us that the vertical audience is looking for straight-up entertainment. She finds it both humbling and empowering to know that she’s not creating art for herself. “We’re creating for the audience and we know what they want,” Wang says, adding that after a long day, people are seeking rest and entertainment. “People aren’t watching things on their phone to learn a lesson.”

But people are watching. Lunar Ticks, the bilingual writing team Wang co-founded, has passed a billion views across the series they’ve written and localized, all in about three years. According to Reuters, some 66 million monthly active users in the U.S. are watching microdramas, and the format generated $1.5 billion in U.S. revenue this year. It’s no wonder we’re seeing more and more traditional Hollywood players crossing over to mobile platforms. But aside from the revenue potential, the format also gives storytellers a chance to connect with an audience, and quickly. This is what all digital creators have in common. Katy Fishell (Comedy Writer, Cartoonist) captured an entire generation with her ability to take ideas from a car ride home and turn them into cartoons on social media just days later.

Breaking the Big Screen: The YouTube Generation Comes of Age

Where traditional development cycles can go on for years, verticals move from page to launch in months. (I’m told the average cycle from ideation to premiere is three!) Tiffany Yvonne Cox (Writer/Director, Leaving Mr. Wrong for Mr. Right; Actor, Reasonable Doubt) spoke about going to the “School of Self” and not waiting for perfection. Cox independently produced her own vertical series to put herself on the map, and now writes and directs microdramas in between acting in broadcast television shows. For most, there are no plans to give up on the horizontal world. Verticals are simply the latest platform.

Now that YouTube has passed its 20th anniversary, it’s hard to remember when it was the new platform on the block. But there was a time when thick lines were drawn between digital creatives and those in traditional Hollywood. Today, an Oscar winner eating hot wings on the internet is almost expected during award season. And starting in 2029, The Academy Awards will stream on YouTube. I ask, only half-jokingly, will TikTok be next?

Dawn Yang (Global Head of Entertainment & Micro-series, TikTok) spoke about how TikTok offers a unique watching experience. “We offer new ways of watching together with people who are not in your social circle, but are people who love the same content as you do,” said Yang. And viewers aren’t just scrolling through, they’re sticking around. Research by Omdia tells us that vertical platforms have surpassed streamers when it comes to mobile engagement. The report states, “U.S. users now spend more time per day watching microdramas on mobile apps than they do watching Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon Prime Video on mobile devices.”

With data like this, one has to wonder what “breaking in” even looks like. Across both panels, the consensus was that no one really knows anymore, because it’s changing beneath our feet. In the digital age, art can move at the speed of technology. By the time you finish reading this article, there will be ten new formats downloadable in the palm of your hand. That being said, the panel audiences still wanted advice on how to break in, even if we have no idea what’s inside the house. Advice ranged from “make movies with your friends” and “they find you when you’re ready” to Mark Duplass’ “The Cavalry Isn’t Coming” speech being mandatory viewing.

Panelists also touched on bad advice. When making his first film, many people told Nicolas Curcio (Writer; Play House, GOAT), “this is your one shot,” but Curcio disagrees. He says that unlike the Eminem song, “you want to give it your all, but it’s never your one shot. There’s a million stories of people who didn’t get it right [on the first try], but then got it right.” Other overrated industry advice included focusing on getting an agent or manager first. The panel widely agreed that having representation is great because they can put you in a room, but that doesn’t guarantee work. Focus on making your materials something you believe in. This is exactly how the YouTubers behind this summer’s horror hits started: making what they believed in and building audiences, who then followed them to the box office.

Where the YouTube panel focused more on transitioning from social platforms to the big screen, the vertical storytellers were more interested in how the mobile screen itself can be the destination. We’re not there yet, but many vertical producers like Elizabeth Dell and Hernan Lopez envision a world where microdramas reach the same cinematic heights that television has. Before David Lynch made Twin Peaks (1990), people said television would never get there either.

P.S. What’s a microdrama, you ask? Check out our last Film Independent article for a deeper dive into what they are, where they came from, and why they’re here to stay.

Find the full panel discussions at Film Independent’s YouTube HERE.

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Member Lens: Daniela Taplin Lundberg on Producing, Podcasting & ‘Club Kid’

In our Member Lens series, we’re spotlighting a cross-section of current Film Independent Members to see how they got where they are now, what they’re up to now and what being a part of Film Independent means to them.

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For some people, their path becomes so clear it just jumps out at them. For producer and Film Independent Member Daniela Taplin Lundberg, that was the case when she visited her stepdad, writer/director David S. Ward, on set one day and found herself surrounded by frogs brought in for the days’ scene. The sight amazed young Daniela, who decided that day that she wanted to be part of whatever magic that made that happen.

She went on to found Stay Gold Features and produce classics like Beasts of No Nation, The Kids Are All Right and Honey Boy. Along with being a powerhouse producer, she started her own podcast, Hollywood Gold, that tells listeners what it took to get some of their favorite movies made, along with the producers and filmmakers who made them.

We spoke with her about the trials and tribulations of being an indie producer, as well as how Film Independent is the community that she found that supports and celebrates the magic that makes indie films happen.

I wanted to start off with a little bit of your background and what first drew you to the movies.

My mother, my father, and my stepfather were all in the film business, and I grew up in LA in the ’80s. One of my earliest memories: my stepdad wrote and directed Cannery Row, which is adapted from a John Steinbeck novel. He had written The Sting when he was 27, and then MGM gave him some money to make Cannery Row with Nick Nolte and Debra Winger. Anyways, I was four years old, and I remember going to MGM Studios. They had this scene where some of the supporting characters were catching frogs, and they had literally thousands of frogs, all live, on the stage.

I had no idea this was possible. I got to take home two frogs in a Styrofoam cup, and the top came loose and one of the frogs jumped out, and I was just hooked. I was like, “Whatever is happening here is magical.”

I fell in love with the old-school style of filmmaking and filmmakers. My dad would bring home early scores for movies, and he’d let me watch casting tapes and weigh in. I remember he made The Program when I was in early high school, and he was deciding between Tupac Shakur and Omar Epps for one part. I was like, “Oh, they’re both so different, and they’re both so good.” To me, it was so exciting to see words spring off the page. So I always knew I was going to do it. I was in love with the art of filmmaking and proper movies. Those are the movies I try to make.

What was your first job in the industry, and what was that experience like?

I decided to move to New York after college. That was the era of Miramax and Fine Line and October Films. I had the option to go intern at Miramax or go be a PA on a tiny $300,000 film. Someone had told me, because I wanted to be a producer, that the best way to understand what producers do is to be a PA, because you can see all the departments and where all the money’s going.

So we shot down on Broome Street. It all took place in one room. It starred Amanda Peet, who everyone said was going to be a big deal, and Ione Skye, who played one day. And I did everything. I cleaned toilets.

I remember, I didn’t know what sides were. Someone said, “Go make sides from this script,” and I was like, “What are sides?” I ran to the Kinko’s and made sides. I was a jack-of-all-trades. I got the walkie taken away on day five because I just kept chatting on it. You learn so much in that job.

But that’s the magic of filmmaking. When it’s funny, or when it works, it’s great, and you’re just happy to be a part of it. I’ll never forget cleaning the toilets. I was like, “Wow, PAs really do just have to do whatever they’re told.” But it’s the best way to figure out what you ultimately want to do and what direction to go in.

Tell me what you thought was cool about producing back then, and why you like producing today. What’s the appeal for you?

My mother was a great character actress named Rosana DeSoto. She’s most well-known for playing Ritchie Valens’ mother in La Bamba. She was in Stand and Deliver. But the thing I noted about actors is they’re always waiting for the phone call. Half the time, they don’t even know why they didn’t get the job. I was just like, “This is such hard work.” She’s so talented, but there’s no control in it, right?

Then my stepdad was a writer-director, which was a whole other set of skills that required such focus. I wasn’t a good enough filmmaker or writer myself, but my biological dad, John Taplin, was a producer. He started out as a road manager for Bob Dylan and The Band, and then he came to LA. He was like, “I’ve been told I’d be a good movie producer because I take charge.”

He was introduced to Martin Scorsese, who was editing at the time. Scorsese had four scripts, and one of them was Mean Streets. My dad liked Mean Streets. He didn’t know you weren’t supposed to put your own money into a film, so he put in a little money he’d saved from his rock-and-roll touring days, and then he went out and raised the rest.

They made Mean Streets in 19 days, 16 of which were in LA and three of which were in Greenwich Village, where they did some exteriors. My dad just believed in this guy, and in De Niro. De Niro was totally discovered on that. And the movie just took flight. He didn’t know what he was doing. But the romance of that, discovering a talent like that and being a part of it and helping launch it, that was it.

So I always knew that producing was the thing I could do. I wanted to launch voices I believed in and make great film, make great art. It sounds corny, but that’s really what it is.

I want to talk to you about your podcast. What made you want to start the podcast, and what have you learned from it?

I was a huge fan of the podcast How I Built This, which was about building great companies. I’d listen to the Warby Parker story or the Tate’s chocolate chip cookie story, and I was always intrigued by the course of one founder’s dream. And I said, “I feel like there needs to be a version of this for movies, from the producer’s perspective.”

The producer tends to be the one who’s there at the very nascent stage and takes it all the way through to the end. They have a perspective on the filmmakers and the financiers, and what the studio thought, and how the shoot went. They’re the CEO of the movie.

I though, “I know enough producers that I could pack a season, at least with my friends.” We’re the little guys that no one ever cares about. So we just started it out of our office with a couple of episodes, and people really seem to love it.

Most great films almost don’t get made, and that is the thing I’ve learned most. You listen to the story of The Fighter or Arrival or all these great movies, and there are always two or three moments where it almost went away. Most of the time, it’s through the fortitude of the producer that they stay on track.

It’s enough to make me put my head down again and keep going, because sometimes I’m coming off of a Zoom where I’m like, “Why do I do this? I’m too old to do this bullshit.” And then you realize, “No, but you’re making something great.” And probably the person on the other side of the call is just trying to make something great too, and maybe you just don’t agree. So you have to have a lot of patience and strength of will. That’s what the podcast does for me.

When you’re meeting with a writer-director you haven’t worked with before, what makes you want to attach yourself to a project and say, “I want to be here for the long run with this person or this project”?

For me, it’s always two things. One is I want to feel that there’s a freshness and a novelty to whatever I’m being pitched. I want the director to look out into the world like an audience member and pitch their own movie to that audience. If the audience is like, “Ooh, that feels unique, that feels sticky,” then I’m probably going to lean in. If you just keep following the same thing that’s been successful for ten years, you’re never going to make anything interesting, right?

The other thing is I love it when a filmmaker has a specific vision. I almost prefer the overly passionate person to the person who’s just looking for other people’s opinions. The overly passionate person may irritate me most of the time, but I love that they have a clarity, so I don’t need to worry about it. The worst thing is when a producer is second-guessing and trying to fix things for the director.

I remember when I was working with Cary Fukunaga on Beast of No Nation, we were early in the edit, and the film was too long. I was working with my partner, Amy Kaufman, who had worked with him before. It was the first time I had worked with him, and she goes, “Well, I trust him. I trust him more than I trust myself.” That was a light-bulb moment for me. The really great filmmakers are going to look for other opinions and for collaboration, but it’s their creative ship. I love when I can trust my filmmaker, and I’ve had the benefit of working with a lot of great ones.

Tell me about your latest project. What was your involvement with Club Kid and how did that come together?

I’m so excited about that movie. I’m an executive producer on it. I did not carry that film on my back. But one of my dear friends in the industry is Ryan Heller, who runs Topic Studios. I had produced a movie for Topic called Nanny, which we partnered on.

We went out to lunch last July and I was like, “What do you have going?” He pitched me a couple of movies, and then he talked about Club Kid. He said, “We’re doing this little movie from this first-time filmmaker named Jordan Firstman.” And I was like, “Oh, I love Jordan Firstman. I think he’s really smart.” Then he pitched me the arc of the movie.

I guess I gravitate toward big films that tend to have child characters as a lens into the world. If you look at Honey Boyor Beast of No Nation or What Maisie Knew, that is true for all those films. So I instinctively gravitated to Club Kid. I read it overnight and called Ryan up on Monday. I said, “Ryan, we love it. I love it. Please let us be a part of it.”

I inherently trust Alex Coco, who’s the lead creative producer. I love Anora so much. I’ve met him a couple of times, and I’ve interviewed Alex a couple of times on the pod. I just think he’s as creative as he is producorial, which is always my favorite kind of producer. I saw early cuts of it, and it’s rare to see an early cut and just be like, “I’m completely on board with the ride.” It was really a world that he inhabited, so it felt so authentic. And then he layered in this lovely story of bringing this kid into his life, which forces him to grow up. I inherently love those stories.

That’s how it happened, and the rest is history. Cannes was insane, and they’ve been on this whole run through the film festivals. I got to celebrate with everyone at Toronto, and that was so fun. I’m so excited to see how audiences respond to it.

When did you first become aware of Film Independent and what made you want to become a member?

It’s been a part of my entire film life for as long as I can remember. I think one of the first films I did was Lonesome Jimwith Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler. From the get-go, Film Independent and the Spirit Awards have inhabited the very fabric of the way I make movies. I’ve never known any other way than boots on the ground, make it happen, which I feel is very much the Film Independent approach. I’ve admired the organization for so long because of that.

My mom hasn’t won many awards, but one of the awards she won was one of the first Spirit Awards ever. She won for her role in Stand and Deliver, and she beat out Julia Roberts in Mystic Pizza. That’s still one of her big calling cards, that she beat Julia Roberts. So Film Independent and the Spirit Awards have been a part of every step of my career. It’s such an important part of independent filmmaking and independent voices. I’m so grateful that it exists, because it’s helped me so much.

What’s your favorite part about being a member?

When I go to an event or the Spirit Awards, it just feels like family. We’re all people who roll our sleeves up and once in a while throw on a nice outfit, but mostly it’s about doing the work and making great art. That’s a little different from the glitz and glamour of the more upscale Hollywood organizations. Don’t get me wrong, I love that too. But I feel Film Independent is all about the right things, what the film business should be about: doing the hard work and pushing for great art and doing it in a way that’s accessible to everyone who wants to participate.

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Industry Shifts: Insights on AI and Filming International from the Film Independent Forum

Two sessions at the forum spoke directly to brewing concerns in the heart of our moviemaking town: one, is AI taking over and two, can anyone in Los Angeles afford to live here, let alone make a movie?

Let me spoil it with the TL;DR that our panelists hold a lot of hope for both concerns, and surprise: it comes down to human relationships and partnerships. Connecting with collaborators, connecting with audiences, connecting with new ideas and perspectives from a diversity of backgrounds… basically everything that Film Independent stands for.

So let’s dig in. Reality Check: AI in the Workplace brought together three industry professionals and an economist, moderated by journalist Carolyn Giardina. Patrick Adler kicked things off with a rousing overview of creative jobs in California and how AI tools are affecting jobs on a broad scale. Speaking as a founding partner of Westwood Economics, his team published a report on the 118,000 creative jobs lost in California since 2022. The report is doing detective work on what differentiates this change in California from the rest of the country, where industries adopting AI tools have actually seen growth in the human workforce. Adler surmised that as AI tools have become more involved in some jobs, more people have been required to manage and implement those tools. But the unique factors of recession and livability for California and Los Angeles specifically could play a role.

Harry Yoon (Editor, Spider-Man: Brand New Day) recognized how AI has made it more streamlined and less tedious to complete “soul-crushing” tasks like transcription or building out new concepts with sound design and ADR drafts to test out new lines, leaving humans to do more of the fun stuff. Mathew Cullen (Founder of Mirada Studios, Motion Theory) has also found that work is streamlined through the use of AI, but that clients tend to be misinformed about what AI can actually do. No matter what they’ve heard, you can’t just prompt your way to a cinematic and artistic result – the role of human experience, human skill and human interaction is still vital.

As a writer on the other hand, Ruth Fowler (Writer, Rules of the Game, Little Disasters) finds that gainful employment has always been challenging, but in the reality of AI involvement she’s being asked to do more free work – take more meetings, create more development documents – before knowing if she’s landed the job. But beyond the usual hustle to get work that covers a year’s salary, she wonders if AI is making writers even more isolated than usual. The experience she has gained from getting notes and pushback from fellow humans only translates to Claude if she trains it to; a newer writer may not benefit from that critique. Meanwhile, busyness and overwhelm make soliciting feedback from humans as difficult as ever.

Yoon and Cullen echoed concerns about what brings humans together at work, as the same tedious tasks AI handles might previously have functioned as training ground for an intern. The mentorship space is being affected, as Cullen reflected on starting his company in 2003 and training up new people. “My intern at the time is now the head of creative at my company. I think about all those interns, and I think about all those people that you know were sort of there, and you’re kind of creating that space for them to show up and figure it out.” Cullen has seen receptionists go on to be producers and directors that have won Emmys, all from the osmosis of being around imaginative people, seeing future possibilities up close.

There were also takeaways that could be used when audience members got home. VFX supervisor and Creators Coalition on Artificial Intelligence founder Jim Geduldick just launched the CCAI site, which includes useful tools for filmmakers like an AI terms glossary, and an impact survey and visualizer and be found here.

The panel tackled concerns about AI changing job descriptions and how much cost savings will matter, especially now that it’s more expensive to hire domestically versus overseas – even London is cheaper than Atlanta. Cullen accepts the encroachment of AI technology but doesn’t like it. Even so, he asserted that the creative business has never been more exciting or more challenging. “From short-form to long-form to interactive form to experiential … longevity is living in that river of change, you know?”

Meanwhile as so much production work moves offshore, how much cheaper is it as an independent filmmaker to take your film abroad? Crossing Borders: The International Landscape for Indies brought together five filmmakers to swap stories and highlight pros and cons for taking your production global. While the US does not currently have any international co-production treaties, our panel highlighted the importance of finding partners in the country that interests you. And by partners, Anna Różalska (EP for Who Will Write Our History and Co-Producer of Arbitrage) means true believers in the project – like-minded collaborators who want to see the story succeed. When shooting a project in Lithuania, Różalska described asking multiple companies to read the script and suggest a budget. Ultimately her choice was motivated by the ideas presented. “It wasn’t about eventually the budget, but about a company that really cared about the project … we could really tell they were very much involved.”

Crossing Borders: The International Landscape for Indies

Shih-Ching Tsou (Director/Producer, Left-Handed Girl) is from Taiwan but lives in New York and had never made a film in her home country. So partnership was key. “It’s not really that exotic, because it’s really scary,” she says of trying to prove herself and her vision in the Taiwanese film industry. “People will look at you and say … ‘I don’t think you know what to do,’ right? So you kind of have to jump in there and kind of prove to them, like this is the way.” Communication and trust are key elements to any partnership, and Munir Atalla (Head of Production & Acquisitions, Watermelon Pictures) asserted that international relationships are no different.

Claire Brooks (Executive Director, Association of Film Commissioners International) shared with passion about the practicalities of identifying potential locations and making the most of the local film commission – even within the United States. “They provide free location services,” Brooks explained. “Some of them will read your script. Some of them have access to funding opportunities – not through their office, but through their national bodies.” And those that don’t can point you to the right place. Miura Kite (President of Global Content, Maria Farinha Films) has partners at a French production company and the two companies bring shows to each other, taking the lead based on who pays for what. “Once you do find people you love working with, try to maximize it in any way.”

In addition, moderator Tatiana Kelly (Producer, The Catcher Was a Spy, Cut Throat City) guided the panel through high level thoughts on attracting foreign investment, selling the finished project worldwide, the marketing potential of attaching stars, and keeping an open mind for the long view – “Talk to people,” Tsou suggested, “you never know who you’re gonna meet.” Brooks told a story about cultural alignment, and how The Substance earned a tax incentive from France because Demi Moore’s character cooks a French dish in one scene. “Read the details,” she summarizes on the importance of knowing what a given region is looking for when considering investment. Also not to be overlooked is cultural differences, unique aspects of local film industries and traditions, and holidays. If France is on vacation for the month of August, that will impact your production schedule.

“Travel a lot,” Różalska recommends. “I think the only way to really like connecting with people from different countries is through understanding their culture.”

While it’s easy to romanticize opportunities that are farther afield, panelists advised taking all considerations into account. Public financing can take 2-3 years. If tax incentives are refunds on expenses already incurred, then consider the interest on those expenses until you get paid. Brooks recommended getting a regional film office involved as soon as possible so they can help discern how the numbers will play out in real time and money. “When are you getting that money and how long are you carrying that loan, and is it worth it?”

Różalska lives in LA, going back and forth to Europe to make films. She was optimistic about the potential for great international film partnerships. “You all live in Hollywood and the whole world is looking up to you,” she said with a smile. Her European origins taught her the value of treaties and the amazing opportunities to collaborate across national borders. “I do believe the best way to make films is to really find different ways to collaborate and really take what’s best from both worlds.”

Maybe the same can be said for AI.

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Everything You Need to Know About the New Federal Film Incentive Bill

It’s a sign of the times: The iconic Warner Bros. water tower has already been repainted to include ‘A Skydance Corporation’, signaling the close of the PSKY/WBD merger.

While this consolidation has everyone wondering about the future, Film Independent is already looking ahead. During the Future of Independent Film & The Creative Economy panel at the Film Independent Forum, President Juan Devis addressed a fundamental question facing independent film:

“For 42 years, Film Independent has championed creative independence in filmmaking. Through our programs, labs, grants, mentorship, events and the Spirit Awards, we have helped artists and projects move from idea through development and production, and ultimately toward audiences. But the conditions in which that work is being made are changing dramatically. Los Angeles remains one of the greatest filmmaking capitals of the world, yet we have watched production decline, jobs disappear and projects move elsewhere.

Film Independent wants to take a more active role in making sure these filmmakers, businesses, and jobs are represented in the economic and policy conversations shaping our future. And that is why we are gathered here today, to ask: What will it take for Los Angeles and California to remain the world’s most important and relevant home for independent storytelling?”

A new federal film incentive might provide some answers.

It’s called The Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act. Introduced by Washington lawmakers on September 24, 2026, this bipartisan piece of legislation is part of a plan to counter overseas production and bring filmmaking jobs back to the U.S. As the first national film and television production tax credit, it would create a 20% U.S. film incentive, with bonuses that could bring the total rebate up to 30%.

To showcase the financial disadvantages currently facing U.S. productions, producer John Lang told the audience at the Creative Economy panel that a $25-30 million dollar movie had a proposed transportation budget of 9 million dollars to film in Atlanta, as opposed to 950,000 pounds in Belfast. “You can’t compete with that,” he said.

While it’s not a ‘silver bullet’, this new federal incentive is designed to compete with approximately 65 countries currently offering incentives unavailable in the U.S. It will also be stackable with state incentives, and would provide a 5% uplift for spending at least $10 million in 10 states in a year. These combined credits could create some of the world’s most generous subsidies for film and TV. “If it passes and it stacks clean, shooting in Georgia or California or New York is the best deal on the planet,” said Joe Chianese, senior vice president for incentives at Entertainment Partners. “Nothing overseas comes close.”

The incentive would apply to narrative and documentary feature films, TV shows (scripted and unscripted), TV pilots, animation, pre- and post-production, above-the-line and below-the-line wages.

Importantly, it would also include a 5% bonus for independent productions, as well as for filming in a federal disaster area, with a 5 year limit. After the 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires, Los Angeles County was declared a federal disaster area. If adopted, this bonus would apply to LA County until January 2030.

For independent filmmakers, this could have significant implications for packaging and financing their work. If shooting in LA becomes more financially viable, it incentivizes talent to attach themselves to those independent projects, which directly impacts their ability to get financed and made.

“When you’re talking about independent film and you’re trying to go for that actor who’s going to greenlight you, if you can say you’re shooting here in LA and they get to go home every day, that makes a huge difference,” said producer Tom Butterfield at the Forum.

The Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act would require films to have a minimum spend of $1 million, and at least 75% of the production days must take place in the U.S. If it passes, it will apply to projects that go into production after December 31, 2026.

This legislation has bipartisan support from the White House, as well as Senator Adam Schiff (D), Representative Laura Friedman (D) of California, Senator Tim Scott (R) of South Carolina, and Representative Tim Moran (R) of Texas. Friedman and Moran are also founding members of the Congressional American Film & TV Production Caucus, a bipartisan effort to further bolster U.S. production and educate Congress on the importance of making entertainment here in the states.

According to John Lang, a healthy film ecosystem includes not just larger, studio-backed productions, but independent ones as well. “We fill in the gaps in the ecosystem. You don’t want everyone to just have a job at a huge company. You need to have that mix of small and medium sized businesses.”

While the future remains uncertain, Film Independent is committed to finding paths forward that support creative independence, for the well being of all.

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Photo by Harold Mendoza on Unsplash

Don’t Miss Indies: What to Watch in October

Well folks, we have a truly intriguing situation for October’s independent film releases. In the peak of spooky season, our list features just one horror film. But here you’ll find plenty of pathos, adapting to the unknown, and personal stories of tragedy to rival the slashiest of slasher flicks. Dive in and make plans to join us at the theater!

BLUE HERON

When You Can Watch: September 29

Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents

Director: Sophy Romvari

Cast: Eylul Guven, Edik Beddoes, Amy Zimmer

Why We’re Excited: Canadian-Hungarian filmmaker Sophy Romvari’s debut is an unusual coming-of-age story, trying to understand the past. In the 1990’s, eight-year-old Sasha (Eylul Guven) is the youngest of four kids growing up on Vancouver Island. The family recently immigrated from Hungary, but their fresh start is complicated by her eldest brother, Jeremy (Edik Beddoes), whose behavior is erratic – and sometimes dangerous. Exploring memory and perspective with innovative cinematography, Romvari imputes her childhood on Sasha, watching her parents agonize over Jeremy and their impossible choices for his future. When later the grown-up Sasha (Amy Zimmer, Problemista) begins to make a film re-visiting the people and institutions involved with that period of her life, she grapples with Jeremy’s story and how it shapes her own questions and concerns. Film Independent member Rafael Thomaseto is an Associate Producer and Neil Champagne is an Executive Producer.

THE SCOUT

When You Can Watch: October 6

Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents

Writer/Director: Paula González-Nasser

Cast: Rutanya Alda, Matt Barats, Mimi Davila

Why We’re Excited: Paula González-Nasser has five Location Management credits to her name, and her directorial debut is an autobiographical ode to that role. As Sofia (Mimi Davila, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse) navigates New York City with a camera and a fire inside, we get a lyrical and cinematic peek into a day in her life. Even though her job is to find film locations for a TV pilot, Sofia’s work brings her into disinterested contact with people in their homes, businesses and private lives. It’s a series of human vignettes where the soundtrack is the city traffic and lots of voicemails from the people whose shops and apartments Sofia is on her way to shoot. This contemplative workplace drama builds quiet tension until things take a personal turn. Film Independent member Jaelyn Ellis is an Associate Producer.

TAKE ME HOME

When You Can Watch: October 14

Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents

Writer/Director: Liz Sargent

Cast: Anna Sargent, Victor Slezak, Ali Ahn

Why We’re Excited: Korean-American Liz Sargent adapts her short film in this autobiographical debut feature about thriving in an uncertain future. Anna (Anna Sargent, the filmmaker’s sister) is a 38-year-old daughter of aging parents, and the three of them take care of each other in the Orlando summer heat. It’s a tricky balance between Anna’s physical strength paired with mental disability and her parents’ increasing physical weakness and – in the case of her father Bob (Victor Slezak, The Order) – cognitive decline. They maintain an affectionate but unsustainable trio of support, until a sudden tragic change introduces Emily (Ali Ahn, The Diplomat), Anna’s younger sister into the mix. Through it all, Anna must find a new way forward that works for her. Made with Film Independent members Apoorva Charan (Producer), Jonathan Hsu (Line Producer), Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi (Cinematographer).

YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING

When You Can Watch: October 16

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Directors: Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim

Cast: Billy Evans, Nathan Fielder, Elizabeth Holmes

Why We’re Excited: Surprised Telluride audiences got to premiere this secret documentary from Spirit Award alums Lance Oppenheim (Spirit nominated Ren Faire) and Nathan Fielder (Spirit winner, The Rehearsal). Their crew of eight was invited into the lives of Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes and her husband, beginning shooting thirty-four days before Holmes went to prison. The couple wants us to see that they are just regular people, and what we do see is… not that. But also what do we actually see? Oppenheim told Variety, “Nathan and I couldn’t agree on what we actually captured every day. One of us would see something, and the other wouldn’t. I heard the same thing out of Telluride. People were arguing about specific moments. That is perfect. That is the only way.”

BREEDER

When You Can Watch: October 28

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Writer/Director: Alex Goyette

Cast: Dot-Marie Jones, Paige McGarvin, Daniel Doheny

Why We’re Excited: Alex Goyette’s feature debut after many shorts and the Aliwood series is an absurd dark comedy/horror that preys on the dreams of a college student who just wants to save bees. Russell (Daniel Doheny, Alex Strangelove) is seeking funding for his research when a potential angel investor crosses his path. Patti (Dot-Marie Jones, Glee) promises to consider getting involved with Russell’s project if he will entertain a proposal of her own. What begins as a strange lark to make awkward conversation with an off-grid poodle breeder descends into an unsettling exploration of perfection and the survival of the fittest.

LA BOLA NEGRA

When You Can Watch: October 20

Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents

Directors: Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo

Cast: Penélope Cruz, Glenn Close, Miguel Bernardeau

Why We’re Excited: Spanish directing team Los Javis (Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, Holy Camp!) concoct a lavish musical exploration of the Spanish Civil War and the untold stories of three gay men. Tied together by a mysterious thread that reveals itself throughout the film, Sebastián (Guitarricadelafuente, Bitter Christmas), Carlos (Milo Quifes) and Alberto (Carlos González, A una isla de ti) live in three different time periods before, during and long after the war. 1937 is the central timeline, with Sebastián’s conscription into the fascist army and initial encounter with the beautiful prisoner of war, Rafael (Miguel Bernardeau, Zorro). As Sebastián begins to realize his true nature, he also knows that the regime he’s fighting for is on a mission to eradicate it.

ROSE

When You Can Watch: October 22

Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents

Director: Markus Schleinzer

Cast: Sandra Hüller, Caro Braun, Marisa Growaldt

Why We’re Excited: The story Austrian filmmaker Markus Schleinzer (Angelo) tells is not based on one life, but it does compile many historical accounts of women dressing as men to change their circumstances. In black and white simplicity, Sandra Hüller (Spirit Award winner Toni Erdmann) portrays Rose – already disguised as a man when we meet her, tramping through the German forest in uniform to take possession of a farm she’s inherited. Earning favor with the small town by restoring the property to its former glory, she is inevitably presented with a bride. Taking the dowry and creatively circumventing the obligations of marriage, Rose is then surprised to learn she will be a father. Though the blossoming joys of family life and agrarian success can’t last, even as fate catches up to Rose she is still the master of her story.

THE ONLY LIVING PICKPOCKET IN NEW YORK

When You Can Watch: October 23

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Writer/Director: Noah Segan

Cast: John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Karina Arroyave

Why We’re Excited: Spirit Award nominated John Turturro (Box of Moonlight) plays Harry, a native New Yorker and a pickpocket. He’s smooth and experienced, tough and confident. But even old school hustlers have to change with the times, and Harry’s lifestyle of fast cash yields diminishing returns as digital currency replaces dollar bills and easily pawnable items. Harry struggles to make ends meet while looking after his wife, Rosie (Karina Arroyave, The Blacklist) who requires constant care. Surrounded by relics of technology past, Harry is suddenly plunged into 21st century hot water when he lifts a trackable USB stick with cryptocurrency credentials and mob connections. As a career criminal, Harry has a natural relationship with an NYPD detective (Giancarlo Esposito, Spirit Award nominated Fresh) and ultimately it’s his deep human connections that will see him through this bewildering technological landscape.

FATHERLAND

When You Can Watch: October 26

Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents

Director: Paweł Pawlikowski

Cast: Sandra Hüller, Hanns Zischler, August Diehl

Why We’re Excited: Polish filmmaker and Spirit Award winner Paweł Pawlikowski (Ida) takes us to 1949 Germany, as German novelist and Nobel laureate Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler, Munich) returns from his California exile. On a road trip through the war-torn country with his daughter, Erika (Sandra Hüller, Spirit Award winner Toni Erdmann) Mann faces his countrymen after a 16-year absence, speaking to assemblies from Frankfurt to Weimar. Meanwhile his son Klaus (August Diehl, Inglourious Basterds) is not coping well in America, struggling with depression and drugs. Mann seems to keep aloof from the fixed ideologies of America and Europe’s east and west, avoidant of partisanship. But the political landscape – and Mann’s attitude towards it – mirrors the changes in his family, as Erika suffers the separation from her brother.

PROGRAMMER’S PICK: WICKER

When You Can Watch: October 23

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Directors: Alex Huston Fischer, Eleanor Wilson

Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Olivia Colman, Elizabeth Debicki

Why We’re Excited: From Film Independent Lead Programmer Jenn Wilson–

Wicker, the second feature by Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and is definitely worth all the buzzy hype it’s been getting. Olivia Colman plays a local fisherwoman who is mainly an outcast in her small village. Fed up with being lonely, she asks the local basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) if he can weave her a companion. Sure enough, one month later, a husband (Alexander Skarsgård) made of wicker (!) shows up to marry her and they find themselves in a passionate and devoted marriage. All is well between them until the couple attends a wedding and it soon becomes obvious to all the townsfolk (especially the women) that the new Wicker Man is a better husband to the fisherwoman than the husbands they all have at home, sewing jealousy into the hearts of them all and bringing trouble for the happy couple. Filled with lots of bawdy and horny humor, incredibly witty writing, and spectacular performances. Wicker is sure to be one of your favorite movies of the Fall season. Film Independent member Justin Lothrop is a Producer and Jennifer Westin is an Executive Producer.

KEY

Film Independent Fellow or Member

Film Independent Presents Screening, Q&A

Microbudget

Filmmaker or Lead Characters of Color

Film Independent Spirit Award Winner or Nominee

Female Filmmaker

LGBT Filmmaker or Lead LGBT Characters

First-time Filmmaker

LA Film Festival Winner or Nominee

For over 40 years, Film Independent has helped filmmakers get their projects made and seen. The nonprofit organization’s core mission is to champion creative independence in visual storytelling in all its forms, and to foster a culture of inclusion. We support a global community of artists and audiences who embody diversity, innovation, curiosity and uniqueness of vision. To support our mission with a donation, click here.

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Header Image: La Bola Negra courtesy of Goodfellas

Ten Grand Indies for Grandparents Month PLUS: An Initiative for Senior-Focused Films

While we’re in the midst of Grandparents Month, we wanted to celebrate the great films that spotlight the lives of our seniors. This list includes Spirit Award winning performances, crime dramas, survival films, romances and coming of old-age sagas, that together prove life can be rich, full of surprises, and thrill you no matter your age.

Film Independent is also excited to show our support for senior-centered stories by creating new ones. The Film Independent x Humana Shorts initiative will support five Director and Producer teams to produce and launch original shorts that authentically celebrate the vital roles and contributions of seniors to society and raise awareness around the different issues that affect them today.

This marks a first for Film Independent; rather than serving solely as a supporter of independent filmmakers, Film Independent is stepping into the role of both funder and producer. This new role shows Film Independent’s commitment to be an organization that supports filmmakers throughout the lifecycle of their projects—from production and funding through distribution and celebration—while building the knowledge, networks and community that sustain creative careers.

These shorts will have a $100,000 all-in budget and will be completed by the end of 2027. Film Independent will provide additional support via publicity campaigns, marketing and distribution strategy and consultation, and virtual and in-person screenings through 2028.

If you’re a filmmaker interested in applying, applications are now open, and close on October 26, 2026. There will be an extended deadline for Film Independent Members, which will be on November 2, 2026. To learn more about the program, click here.

NOMADLAND (2020)

Writer/Director: Chloe Zhao

Cast: Frances McDormand

Why We Love It: While it came out in the first year of the decade, Nomadland feels like one of the seminal pieces about the 20s. Frances McDormand plays a seasonal Amazon worker living in her trailer. She’s lived a full life already but still needs the money to keep herself afloat. She communes with the other temporary workers at the campsite she resides in, and they share both kindnesses and heartaches in a country where things keep getting harder and there’s no safety net for them. The film won the Spirit Award for Best Feature in 2021 and writer/director Chloe Zhao is a Film Independent Fellow.

FAMILIAR TOUCH (2024)

Writer/Director: Sarah Friedland

Cast: Kathleen Chalfant, Carolyn Michelle Smith, H. Jon Benjamin

Why We Love It: Director Sarah Friedland won the Someone to Watch Award at the 2025 Spirit Awards. The Film was also nominated for the John Cassavetes Award and Kathleen Chalfant was nominated for Best Lead Performance for her depiction of a woman transitioning to an assisted living facility. Chalfant’s Ruth deals with cognitive decline and the film shows vignettes of Ruth adjusting to and ultimately accepting her new reality, and the care that family and caregivers show to her. It still creates space for Ruth to explore new memories, and excel at her passion, cooking including a mean pot of borscht.

CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME (2018)

Director: Marielle Heller

Writers: Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty (Screenplay) Lee Isreal (Book)

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant

Why We Love It: Richard E. Grant won the Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for portraying the best friend of failed author and forger Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy). After Isreal is caught forging letters from deceased celebrities which she pens herself, and Grant’s character Jack sells to collectors. Grant’s joie-de-vie makes this a delicious, heartfelt crime caper with a deeply heartfelt relationship at its heart.

THE TRIPLETS OF BELLVILLE (2003)

Writer/Director: Sylvain Chomet

Cast: Béatrice Bonifassi, Lina Boudreau, Michel Robin

Why We Love It: Music and motion: cinema’s two secret weapons, and the Triplets of Bellville have them in spades. This animated musical has its heroine, Madame Souza, chasing down gangsters across the Atlantic via a pedal-boat to save her cyclist grandson Champion, with the help of the eponymous triplets. Watching the film might be even odder than its description would make it sound, but the films idiosyncratic logic and its relentless musical pace win you over as you watch the ever-determined Madame Souza fight her way back to her grandson.

TONI ERDMAN (2016)

Writer/Director: Maren Ade

Cast: Peter Simonischek, Sandra Hüller

Why We Love It: If you love uncomfortable moments, this is the film for you. Peter Simonischek plays the retired Winfried Conradi, who decides to reconnect with his estranged daughter Ines, played by Sandra Hüller, who is an accomplished businesswoman. Winfied, a compulsive prankster, keeps inserting himself into his daughter’s business affairs as ‘Toni Erdman’ a gonzo character of his own creation. Those awkward interactions only make the relationship worse, but there is something about the free spirit of her father that gets to Ines, and she has an unforgettable breakdown at a work party. The film won the Best International Feature Spirit Award in 2017.

HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971)

Director: Hal Ashby

Writer: Colin Higgins

Cast: Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort

Why We Love It: Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort play one of the most uniquely romantic couples in cinema history in this Hal Ashby classic. The young death obsessed Harold meets the free-spirited mature Maude at a funeral, and the two hit it off first as friends faking murder scenes and playing banjo, then the relationship turns into something more. The morose, dry humor and the Cat Stevens score add to the charm.

THE FAREWELL (2019)

Writer/Director: Lulu Wang

Cast: Awkwafina, Tzi Ma, Diana Lin, Zhao Shuzhen

Why We Love It: Zhao Shuzhen won the Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female in 2020 for her portrayal of Awkwafina’s Nai Nai (grandmother). Nai Nai’s whole family hides the fact that she has terminal cancer and plan a wedding as an excuse for everyone to say goodbye to her without her knowing. Awkwafina’s Billi has issues with how her family is dealing with the situation and clashes with them throughout the trip. The film debates what to do with the time we have, and how much outlook can change quality of life, and in the end, it’s Billi that has some truths to hear from Nai Nai.

SOME KIND OF HEAVEN (2020)

Director: Lance Oppenhiem

Why We Love It: Lance Oppenhiem (Ren Faire, The Python Hunt) takes his keen cinematic eye and points it at the mega-retirement complex The Villages. The community gives residents a hard sell on positivity and the perfect life behind its walls, and the film looks at how residents really feel, and experience life in a designed community.

BEGINNERS (2011)

Writer/Director: Mike Mills

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent

Why We Love It: Winning the Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male in 2012, Christopher Plummer proves it’s never too late to explore yourself in this Mike Mills charmer about an adult son (Ewan MacGregor) coming to grips with his elderly father coming out as gay as he navigates a new relationship his own. The two both learn how to be vulnerable in new ways, and is an exploration on how we can learn to love through both the joyful and painful parts of life. The film was also Nominated for Best Feature Best Screenplay and Best Director.

ALL IS LOST (2013)

Writer/Director: J. C. Chandor

Cast: Robert Redford

Why We Love It: Minimal dialogue, a main character without a backstory or name, and a survival story that puts a at-the-time-of-filming 77-year-old Robert Redford against the open ocean on a sinking sailboat– what is there not to love? You can feel the pounding of the waves as they crash into the wayward sea, just as much as you can feel the wattage of Redford’s star power. All Is Lost is a thrilling tale about the will to live and the fight against the dying of the light. The film won the Spirit Award for Best Cinematography in 2014 and was nominated for Best Feature, Best Male Lead and Best Director.

Applications for the Film Independent x Humana Shorts initiative are now open. The deadline for non-Members is October 26th, while Film Independent Members have until November 2nd.

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Fact Meets Fiction: Meet the 2026 Film Independent Producing Lab Fellows

Ask any indie producer, and they’ll tell you that the job requires the long view. First, you have to find a project you believe in, then you’ve got to get investors to believe in it. You pitch, you develop, and then if you’re lucky you make the thing. Production requires a whole other set of skills, and if you’re making a doc, even principal photography could take years. The film goes through too many iterations in post, and when it’s finally ready, you’re there to shepherd it through its festival run, distribution and release.

One of the best strategies a producer can have to survive all that is to know where to look to get a leg up– where they can find industry experts who can give advice and strengthen a project, coaching to help them plan for both projects and careers, grants and funding to make the process a little easier, and a place to bring all those elements together and curate the experience. Thirteen producers have found all that at this years’ Film Independent Fiction Producing Lab and Documentary Producing Lab, and we’re thrilled to announce them here.

This year marks the 26th annual Fiction Producing Lab (running September 28 – October 9) and the 3rd annual Documentary Producing Lab (which wrapped September 18). Both are intensive programs built to grow careers of independent producers. Fellows work closely with industry advisors to refine their projects and pick up real-world insight into the business side of producing.

“Making a documentary is rarely a straight line, and producers are the people who keep moving the project forward when the path gets complicated,” said Daniel Cardone, Senior Manager of Nonfiction Programs. “We’re excited to bring together this year’s cohort to tackle those challenges head-on, share what they’ve learned, and build a community that extends well beyond the Lab.”

Ashley Flores, Manager of Fiction Programs, echoed that sense of momentum. “We’re proud to support this incredible group of producers and the visionary projects they’re bringing to life. Fellows will leave the Lab with greater clarity, confidence and meaningful relationships to help move both their projects and careers forward.”

Fellows are also getting extra support this year in the form of professional coaching from Renee Freedman & Company (backed by The Harnisch Foundation), and sustainability grants from Film Independent’s newly launched Artist Sustainability Fund.

Alongside the announcement come two major grants: the $30,000 Alfred P. Sloan Producers Grant, awarded to a project that weaves science or technology themes into dramatic storytelling, goes to Justin Hung Nguyen for Stem. The $10,000 Cayton-Goldrich Family Foundation Fellowship was awarded to Drew Dickler. The unrestricted grant goes to a Jewish filmmaker in a Film Independent Artist Development Program.

Film Independent’s Producing Labs have a rich history of launching acclaimed films, including In the Summers (Sundance Grand Jury Prize), The Inspection (TIFF, NYFF, released by A24), Joyland (Cannes Un Certain Regard, Spirit Award winner), All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Spirit Award nominee), and Songs My Brothers Taught Me (Spirit Award nominee). On the documentary side, alumni projects include Natchez (Tribeca Best Documentary), Ascension (Academy Award nominee), Minding the Gap (Academy Award nominee, Spirit Award winner), and United Skates (Emmy Award nominee).

The Fellows

The 2026 Fiction Producing Lab Fellows and their projects are:

Megan Leonard

Megan Leonard is an award-winning creative producer and festival programmer hailing from the Pacific Northwest. She is a Sundance Institute and Gotham alumni, and her films have launched at premier festivals including Sundance and SXSW, debuted on global streaming platforms including Hulu and MUBI, and received five Vimeo Staff Picks. Notable works include: Dream Creep (dir. Carlos A.F. Lopez), Harbor Island (dir. Calvin Lee Reeder), The Influencer(dir. Lael Rogers), and Mixtape Marauders (dir. Peter Edlund). Leonard started working film festivals in 2010 and is currently the Festival Programming Manager at the Seattle International Film Festival.

Project: Call Cutters

Logline: At a gamified call center where pay is dictated by performance and competition is fierce, a new threat forces a motley crew of night shift employees to band together and decide what winning really means in a system built for them to lose.

Oscar Hernandez

Oscar Hernandez is an award-winning Mexican-American filmmaker based in Los Angeles. After studying ancient architecture as an undergraduate, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue film and later enrolled in NYU’s graduate film program. His work has screened at festivals including Tribeca, LA Film Fest, Austin Film Festival, Cinequest, and Seattle. He was the main producer of Nigerian Prince, an independent feature selected by the Tribeca Film Festival for its AT&T Untold Stories competition. Hernandez also recently received an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he focused on exploring new business models and financing structures to empower creators.

Carolina Tamez

Carolina Tamez is a Mexican producer focused on championing multicultural, globally minded storytelling and elevating Latin voices. She began in television, training with the BBC, National Geographic, and NBC. She was a Creative Producer on Fernando Frías’ I’m No Longer Here, which premiered at Tribeca, won 10 Ariel Awards, and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Her work has screened at Cannes Critics’ Week, Berlinale, TIFF, Slamdance, and FICG, and received support from the Spike Lee Film Production Fund and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Fellows Fund.

Project: Lucius Luz

Logline: When teenager Lucius is sent from Mexico to work with his estranged father in California, he becomes drawn to Angel, who is believed to possess divine healing powers and is the son of the local pastor. As their bond deepens, Lucius begins to uncover dark secrets that upend his life and threaten to tear the town apart.

Justin Hung Nguyen

Justin Hung Nguyen is a 2026 Film Independent / Sloan Fiction Producing Lab Fellow and a member of the 2026 Gold House Producer Accelerator. Nguyen produced the USC and Sloan Foundation-supported short Stem (Telluride Film Festival; Student Academy Awards finalist), which is actively being developed into a feature (Sundance Screenwriters Intensive). His feature credits include Too Soon (Heartland International Film Festival). Nguyen’s experience spans development and production across film and television. A graduate of USC’s Peter Stark Producing Program and NYU Tisch, Nguyen is a guest lecturer at USC and co-founder of EDscapade Games, a San Jose escape room company.

Project: Stem*

Logline: Inspired by a true scandal, a devoted female researcher risks everything to earn the approval of a world-renowned stem cell scientist — only to uncover the dark secrets behind his miracle cure that promises to end human disability.

*2026 Film Independent Alfred P. Sloan Producers Grant Recipient

Steven Snyder

Steven Snyder is an independent producer whose short film work, Azi and Seniors, both premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. He’s a 2025 Sundance Producers Lab Fellow, and he previously worked with producer Jim Burke at his company Innisfree Pictures. He is an executive producer on Dreamin’ Wild, which had its world premiere at the 2022 Venice Film Festival. He’s participated in such programs as Film Independent’s Fast Track, PGA Create, and Inside Out’s International Finance Forum, the first and only 2SLGBTQ+ finance forum of its kind promoting queer creatives.

Project: Tell Me a Secret

Logline: When eighteen-year-old Azi Rahimi meets Elizabeth Kessler, it unlocks hidden desires and leads to an unexpected game that affects Azi and those around her.

Po Wei Su

Po Wei is a Taiwanese filmmaker and producer based in Los Angeles. He began his career in commercials and music videos before moving to the US to pursue narrative filmmaking. His producing credits have screened at major festivals including Tribeca, SXSW, Berlin, Palm Springs, and Chicago. Drawing on his roots in Taiwanese cinema, Su bridges Eastern sensibilities with contemporary Western storytelling. Committed to supporting underrepresented voices, he has produced for Tribeca Rising Voices Seasons 2, 3, and 4, and the CAPE Julia Gouw Program Season 1. He is currently in pre-production on two features: The Death of Youngjoo and Multiplier.

Project: The Death of Youngjoo

Logline: In the conservative 1980s Midwest, a fiery Asian American student investigates the suspicious suicide of her fellow best friend, a pastor’s son, inside an elite white fraternity. She uncovers a tragic, forbidden romance involving the fraternity president, a governor’s son, ultimately forcing her to choose between vengeful justice and systemic reform.

Brian Grigsby

Brian Grigsby is a Pittsburgh-raised, Los Angeles-based producer who advocates for unique stories told in captivating ways. He’s a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and was nominated for a NAACP Image Award for the short film Blackout. Grigsby is a Sundance and Film Independent alumni, having participated in the 2022 Sundance Producer’s Intensive Fellowship as well as Film Independent’s Project Involve program in 2020. He has produced projects for the NFL, NBA, HBO, and NBC, among others. His company, Nelson Studios, specializes in narrative content that inspires audiences through stories of perseverance, redemption and faith.

Project: The Last Cowboy

Logline: Saddled by crippling mob debt, a suave ex-con conspires with an unassuming bartender for a series of heists that’ll provide them with the freedom they’ve long desired, but they soon realize this union is more than what they bargained for as the struggle for power could cost them their lives.

The 2026 Documentary Producing Lab Fellows and their projects are:

Rachel Elizabeth Seed

Rachel Elizabeth Seed is a Los Angeles-based nonfiction storyteller working in film, photography, and writing. Her debut feature film A Photographic Memory is a New York Times Critic’s Pick and was called “one of the best docs of the year” by ROGEREBERT.COM. It was awarded a 2025 Film Independent Truer Than Fiction Spirit Award and was nominated for a 2025 Cinema Eye Honors Spotlight Award. Rachel’s work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Chicken + Egg Pictures, NYFA, Field of Vision, the Jerome Foundation, NYSCA, Jewish Story Partners, and IFP/Gotham Labs, among others. Formerly a photo editor at New York Magazine, her photography has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography, and she was a cameraperson on several award-winning feature documentaries.

Project: Bad Girl Marcia Tucker

Logline: After being fired from NYC’s Whitney Museum for her radical exhibitions, feminist curator Marcia Tucker founded the New Museum in 1977 to champion marginalized artists. Through rare archive and insight from today’s artworld rebels, Bad Girl Marcia Tucker traces Marcia’s defiant legacy – offering a blueprint for resistance in the face of contemporary threats to art, artists and art institutions.

Jyoti Sarda

Jyoti Sarda is an Emmy Award–winning, Los Angeles–based producer and the founder of Nimble Media. She draws on her experience as a senior-level global marketing executive at studios including Paramount and Fox to develop impact-driven documentary and narrative work. Jyoti’s credits include the feature film Lilly, about fair-pay icon Lilly Ledbetter and starring Patricia Clarkson, now streaming on Netflix; the POV docuseries And She Could Be Next, which follows a women-of-color–led movement transforming American politics from the ground up; and the documentary features Equal Means Equal, Sirens, and the Emmy-winning Black Barbie, also on Netflix.

Project: The Cost of Care

Logline: In post-Dobbs America, state abortion bans are hollowing out the healthcare workforce — a crisis that goes far beyond bodily autonomy. The Cost of Care follows medical students, residents and frontline doctors across two neighboring states, one banned and one protected, as they navigate legal risk, training gaps and impossible ethical choices to reveal who really pays the price when politics dictates medicine.

Drew Dickler

Drew Dickler is a documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Deep Dive Films. A Sundance Institute fellow, she most recently served as lead producer of What Will I Become?, which premiered at the Berlinale and won the Amnesty International Film Award. She directed the short documentary Big Bass, which has screened at festivals worldwide and earned jury awards at Outfest NEXT and Palm Springs International ShortFest. Her debut feature documentary, Fireboys, streamed on HBO.

Project: The Grass Ceiling*

Logline: Filmmaker Sarah Strauss revisits her abandoned dream of playing professional baseball by following four girls fighting for a place in the sport, as a historic women’s league prepares to launch.

*2026 Cayton-Goldrich Family Foundation Fellowship Grant Recipient

Sruti Lodha

Sruti Lodha is a producer and development lead at The Storiculture Company, where she works

across fiction and non-fiction projects, stewarding ideas from early development to pitch and building creator labs that support emerging voices. Her work is anchored in feminist perspectives and underrepresented narratives, with a particular focus on stories that sit at the intersection ofcommunity and culture. Sruti is the producer and impact producer on Auto Queens, a documentary and impact campaign centering women auto drivers in Chennai, that premiered at IDFA 2025. Across her slate, she brings a dual commitment to rigorous story development and meaningful real-world impact, shaping projects that resonate both on-screen and beyond.

Project: In Search of Missing Clouds

Logline: When the monsoons fail and harvests collapse, eight-year-old burn survivor Aaru refuses to give up on her home in Vidarbha’s dry, saline land, which her family can no longer afford to stay on. In Aaru’s search for answers, a filmmaker returns to the questions that once led his own family to migrate from the same land.

Zak Piper

Zak is an award-winning documentary film producer whose work spans feature documentaries, docuseries, and television. Most recently he produced The Luckiest Guy in the World, a documentary series about NBA legend Bill Walton, directed by Steve James for ESPN’s 30 for 30. The series premiered at SXSW in 2023 and won an Audience Award. Zak has produced several films directed by James, including The Interrupters, for which he was awarded a News & Documentary Emmy Award; Life Itself, named one of the year’s best by the National Board of Review and Broadcast Film Critics Association and was shortlisted by the Academy for Best Documentary; and the Emmy-nominated docuseries City So Real, which premiered at Sundance and was selected for President Barack Obama’s annual list of favorite films and television. Zak produced and co-directed The Ants and the Grasshopper with Raj Patel, which was released theatrically by Giant Pictures before premiering on PBS. He also produced All These Sons for Concordia Studio and 16 & Recovering for MTV, earning an RFK Journalism Award. Zak is currently developing several documentary projects and proudly serves on the Conservation Advisory Board for the town where he lives with his family in Western New York.

Project: My First Phone

Logline: My First Phone is a documentary following four kids in the city of Chicago before, during and after they receive their first smartphones from their families. The film explores how the transition into digital life impacts their social experience, family dynamic and understanding of themselves, using groundbreaking technology to provide a never-before-seen look inside what has become the ultimate rite of passage for young people today.

Beatriz Browne

Beatriz Browne is an award-winning documentary producer and filmmaker. She has produced

projects for HBO Max, Disney+, Hulu, The New York Times, CNN, Google, and Airbnb, with her work recognized by the Cinema Eye Honors, Telluride Film Festival, DOC NYC, SFFILM Doc Stories, the Webby Awards, the International Documentary Association, and the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, among others. Her documentary credits include The Best Chef in the World, The Truth About Jim for HBO, and most recently Rachel, Breathe, directed by Frank Marshall and produced by the Kennedy/Marshall Company. She is currently producing Southern Quest, which was selected for the 2026 Sheffield DocFest MeetMarket.

Project: Southern Quest

Logline: In search of an extraordinary adventure, a group of ordinary people set sail on an old fishing boat from London to Antarctica. Surviving plane crashes, shipwrecks and each other, they become the last independent expedition to the South Pole. Four decades later, they finally reckon with the hidden cost and political impact of their ambition.

Fiction Producing Lab advisors and guest speakers include Juliet Berman, Erika Canchola, Neal Champagne, Pierre M. Coleman, Kyle Greenberg, Sarah Kim, Kaylee Madrid, Lauren Mann, Amanda Marshall, Tony Yang, and Jim Young; fellows also get complimentary access to Rightscenter, a research service for film and TV literary rights.

Documentary Producing Lab advisors and guest speakers include Sarba Das, Orly Ravid, Ben Proudfoot, Smriti Mundhra, Alysa Nahmias, Senain Kheshgi, Diane Becker, Lauren Cioffi, Trevite Willis, Megan Gilbride, Dale Cohen, and Loralee Sundra.

The Fiction Producing Lab is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Harnisch Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Documentary Producing Lab is also supported by The Harnisch Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Fiscal Update: Fiscally Sponsored ‘Shakti’ Now on Amazon & More

Welcome to Fiscal Spotlight, a special monthly round up of projects—at all stages of production—working their way through Film Independent’s Fiscal Sponsorship pipeline. Enjoy!

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Film Independent’s Fiscal Sponsorship program has the power to get projects made. Today we’re sharing three great examples of that, including one you can watch right now.

Fiscal sponsorship (where artists can use Film Independent’s non-profit status to receive grants and tax-deductible donations) supports all sorts of projects: shorts and features, narrative and nonfiction; even the odd new media projects, special events or advocacy initiative. Each month’s Fiscal Spotlight column highlights three new projects taking part in the program.

This month we have updates from three films, including a mind-bending animated feature that’s being painted frame-by-frame, a queer love story on the US/Mexican border that’s about to start it’s festival run, and an award winning Nepalese family drama that’s now available to stream worldwide.

Shakti

Project type: Fiction feature
Project status: Released
Producers: Nani Sahra Walker, Candi Guterres, Ida Sonni, and Jered Everson
Writer/Director: Nani Sahra Walker

About the project:
When her mischievous daughter falls mysteriously ill, a single mother is drawn into Kathmandu’s supernatural underworld of shamans and secrets, where resilience may be their only path to redemption.

Filmmaker Update: After several years of development, production, and post-production, SHAKTI has completed its festival run and is now available through Buffalo 8 on Amazon Prime Video in the US and UK, Tubi in the US and Canada, and Plex and Fawesome worldwide. The film won multiple awards, including Best Narrative Premiere and the Richard D. Propes Narrative Social Impact Award at the Heartland International Film Festival, with additional screenings at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, CAAMFest, the Hawaii International Film Festival, and the International Film Festival of India in Goa. Inspired in part by Nepal’s former 35-day statute of limitations on reporting sexual violence, SHAKTI explores resilience, healing, and justice through the relationship between a mother and daughter. Writer-director Nani Sahra Walker was also named Best New Filmmaker at the 2026 Best of NewFilmmakers Los Angeles Awards.

Watch the film:
Amazon Prime Video

Project Page

Calexico

Project type: Fiction Short
Project status: Post Production
Writer/Director/Producer: Jingwen Felix Qiang
Executive Producer: Jennie Lew Tugend

About the project: 28 years old Chinese-American girl Ash, a rebellious artist wannabe, flees her family’s expectation of taking a stable job to Calexico, a border town in California. She has bonded with Lo, a Mexican transborder college senior who crosses regularly to school and helps to deliver flowers to her uncle’s shop in the US as both are stuck in limbo.

Filmmaker Update: Calexico is crossing the finish line in final post-production – graphics and final DCP, and we’re thrilled to share that it will have its world premiere in the Short Film Competition at the Warsaw Film Festival this fall. We are now preparing final festival materials while raising funds for publicity, festival submissions and travel, audience outreach, and distribution. At its heart, Calexico is a story about avoidance, unspoken love, and the painful distance between two people standing side by side. Set against the rhythms of the U.S.–Mexico border, it asks what remains when a relationship ends without the words or farewell either person needs.

Alongside the short film’s launch, we are developing a feature-length version of Calexico, expanding its exploration of queer love, cultural displacement, and the choices people make when they do not know how to let each other go. We’re grateful to Film Independent for helping us reach this next chapter.

Project Page

The Month Between April and May

Project type: Animated Feature
Project status: Post-Production
Director/Animator/Writer: Kai Tattersall
Producer/Composer: Myles Ortiz-Green

About the Project: The film follows May, a traveling nurse who takes a job aboard the impossibly large hospital train, “Dreamcatcher Express.” Those aboard receive treatment through a surreal form of dream therapy. One evening she meets an old acquaintance, Thomas. They happily reunite and reminisce about their past… but the next day, he jumps off the train.

Filmmaker update: The Month Between April and May has officially locked its final pre-animation cut. After two years of development and a multi-camera shoot with actors in full costume, our feature-length rotoscope animation now enters its most intensive phase: every frame is being painted over by hand (roughly seven minutes of finished animation per month). No generative AI is used. Every frame is 100% human-made.

We’re now raising the final $50,000 in finishing funds through Film Independent’s fiscal sponsorship to complete post-production, our 32-speaker immersive spatial audio mix, and the festival run ahead of a Spring 2027 premiere. Every donation is tax-deductible, and gifts of $100 or more receive a special thanks credit in the film.

As a duo, we’ve been wearing multiple hats to work on this project, and we are so excited to be nearing the finish line, and to be able to share our last two years with you and our communities.

Project Page

Learn more about Fiscal Sponsorship, including its benefits and eligibility requirements by visiting our website. See which projects are currently being supported via our Sponsored Projects page.

Film Independent Artist Development promotes unique independent voices by helping filmmakers create and advance new work. To support our work with a donation, please click here. Become a Member of Film Independent here.

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Why Issa Rae, Effie T. Brown & the Academy Museum Have Bought Into Vertical Cinema

Join us for the ‘Reframing the Narrative: Vertical Storytelling’ panel at this year’s Forum. In the discussion, we’ll bring together creators and representatives from different platforms to explore business models, narrative structures, production flows and exciting new opportunities in vertical storytelling. Find out more about the Forum here.
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Beneath micro-drama’s mountain of contract brides, secret billionaires, and AI-generated fruit cheating on their wives (a balding watermelon to be exact), there’s a real question: can vertical cinema be good? Yes, I used the word “cinema,” but before you revoke my cinephile card, hear me out. Merriam-Webster defines cinema as “the art, technique, or business of making movies,” and micro-dramas already qualify on the last two. The business is booming and the technique is being invented in real time. The harder question is the first one: the art. Raindance Film Festival founder Elliot Grove called vertical “cinema, but without the distance.” To find out whether that’s true, we’ll trace the format back to its silent-film era roots and look at where it’s already experimenting. But first: what even is a micro-drama?

For many, micro-dramas, also known as “verticals,” are the quick, high-stakes, sometimes absurd videos suddenly flooding your social media feed. But this format has been around for years. Originating in China, where they’re known as duanju, micro-dramas are mobile-native stories told in a 9:16 frame and typically feature one-to two-minute episodes that end on cliffhangers. While the cliffhanger is nothing new, the way it’s sold has changed. In the 1910s, audiences paid a nickel a week to find out if the heroine survived. Today’s vertical platforms typically offer the first several episodes for free, then ask for payment at the height of emotional investment. So, if you really want to see that werewolf kiss, it’s going to cost you.

Among my filmmaking community, the objection is usually: movies are widescreen. And they’re not wrong about what a vertical frame gives up. It trades the horizon, a sweeping landscape, and space between two people. But the sacred widescreen frame was not always law. Early films were closer to a square frame and it wasn’t until the 1950s, when studios introduced CinemaScope to lure audiences away from television, that widescreen became the standard. The frame we all love was, in part, a business decision. Sound familiar? What vertical gives up in width, it gains in height, intimacy, and close-ups with nowhere to look away.

It’s fitting that a format built on silent-film era cliffhangers inherits that era’s craft. Since many viewers are watching in transit or at work, micro-drama filmmakers can’t assume they have the audience’s complete attention. With [85% of viewers reported to watch mobile content on mute], micro-dramas rely on high stakes, text on screen, and facial expressions to carry the story. As The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) director Carl Theodor Dreyer put it, “Nothing in the world can be compared to the human face. It is a land one can never tire of exploring.”

“Vertical cinema’s accessibility has the potential to empower more people to become filmmakers. It’s an art form that allows filmmakers to dream beyond traditional boundaries using simple tools like phones.” –Andrew Acedo, The Academy Museum

With each micro-drama ranging from 50 to 100 minutes total run time, the end product is close to a feature film. Blending the cinematic production of movies, the episodic nature of television, and the engagement mechanics of gaming, micro-drama is really a hybrid medium. Producer Elizabeth Dell calls it “a new language for storytelling.” Dell, who heads micro-dramas for Issa Rae’s Hoorae Media, says “verticals allow us to tell different sized stories.” And clearly there’s an audience for them. After Hoorae’s “Screen Time” garnered nearly 75 million views in its first week, micro-dramas became the talk of the town.

In just the last few months, studios, networks, and streaming platforms have started moving into the vertical space. However, vertical platforms like DramaBox built an audience of millions before Hollywood started paying attention. DramaBox Head of Communications, Marcela Kartaszewicz, argues that Hollywood’s late arrival isn’t a sign it missed something. “It’s a sign they’ve recognized this is a genuinely new way to consume entertainment, one that doesn’t compete with existing formats but expands what’s possible alongside them.”

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures was ahead of the curve with its 2023 exhibit, “Shifting Perspectives: Vertical Cinema.” In partnership with Ghetto Film School, the exhibit featured 15 filmmakers from underrepresented backgrounds who created vertical films using mobile devices. Andrew Acedo, the museum’s manager of community and impact, explained that the museum saw the format as a way to “awaken the filmmaker in people and reclaim agency for underrepresented voices.” Acedo encourages filmmakers to take the format seriously and push boundaries. “Vertical cinema’s accessibility has the potential to empower more people to become filmmakers. It’s an art form that allows filmmakers to dream beyond traditional boundaries using simple tools like phones.”

Of course, any new medium comes with growing pains, and micro-dramas have had theirs. Veteran producer Effie Brown comes to the format from the independent film world. She compares early verticals to bodice-ripper romance novels, entertaining, but carrying real problems, including consent issues that still surface in some productions today. Her focus now is building sustainable systems that ensure fair pay, proper insurance, and adequate overhead for the filmmakers making them.

Matthew Ko, co-founder of Knockout Shorts, is working toward something similar. His union-friendly studio has worked with Oscar-nominated actors, evidence that the format can meet traditional standards when the will is there. Ko is candid that many in the space have been making micro-dramas since 2020 without those protections, but change is underway. As new filmmakers enter the scene, he hopes to see the pioneers of the vertical format honored for the work they put in to build its foundation.

“This is a genuinely new way to consume entertainment, one that doesn’t compete with existing formats but expands what’s possible alongside them.” –Marcela Kartaszewicz, Dramabox

Part of what’s drawing those new filmmakers in is the price of entry. Because vertical budgets are so much lower than film and television, creators don’t have to wait for permission. The vertical industry is more willing to take risks and (gasp!) actually make things. In this way, micro-dramas are democratizing filmmaking. Writer Daniela Bailes says verticals have a lower barrier with greater opportunity to showcase diverse cultures and unique storylines that wouldn’t be possible in traditional media. Vertical director Danny Farber calls it “a true place for people to try things.”

For those of us creating in the vertical space, it’s exciting to see the form taken seriously, even if everyone isn’t ready to. At the advent of film, playwrights turned up their noses. The same happened when television was born, and again when a company that was previously known for sending DVDs in red envelopes started creating original content. Micro-dramas will never replace traditional film, but they do give filmmakers another language to choose from.

So, can vertical cinema be good? In some ways, it already is. “Screen Time” had audiences at the edge of their seats with a comment section that made it a communal experience. The stars of CandyJar’s love stories have more chemistry than most current rom-coms on the big screen. And although not a full length micro-drama, InStyle’s “The Boss” with Julia Fox is genuinely funny. Talking AI-fruit aside, there are a lot of real humans with real talent behind this budding industry. At their best, micro-dramas are cinema without the distance and stories close enough to hold. To the filmmakers who are curious about verticals, the clay is still wet. The shape it takes next depends on whose hands are in it.

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Photo by Rapha Wilde on Unsplash

At the Forum: DÌDI was ‘Made in California’– See How It Was Cast

Winning Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay at the Spirit Awards, DÌDI will be featured in the ‘Made in California: Lurker and DÌDI Case Studies‘ panel at this year’s Forum. In the discussion, DÌDI‘s writer/director Sean Wong and Alex Russell (writer/director of Lurker) will reveal in a candid conversation their journeys from script to the screen, sharing what it took to develop, produce, release and ultimately find an audience for their debut features. We’re resharing an article on casting the film and finding compelling young actors to tell an authentic coming of age story. Find out more about the Forum here.

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DÌDI (弟弟) is the type of cinematic experience we all crave but rarely receive these days: an authentic coming-of-age story with a great cast.

The story follows Chris, a Taiwanese American teen trying to find himself in the Bay Area in 2008. As he grapples with complex family and social dynamics, I could hear the theater audience laughing, groaning, and yes, crying. DÌDI feels both personal and universal, thanks in large part to its committed performances. While the cast includes many young and first time actors, it also features Joan Chen, whose poignant portrayal of Chris’s mother, Chungsing, is a standout. At one point, when her character receives disappointing news, there was a collective ‘Aw!’ as audience members expressed heartbreak on her behalf.

Writer/director Sean Wang drew from his own adolescent experiences for DÌDI, and a post-film dedication to ‘mom’ showcases how close these characters are to the filmmaker’s heart.

The film shines in scenes between Chris, played by Izaac Wang, and his mother, played by Chen. Together, they create a believable relationship that is funny, frustrating, and heartache-inducing. Both mother and son struggle with loneliness and a desire to find themselves through art, but generational and cultural divides put them at emotional odds for most of the film, making it all the more satisfying when they do connect.

You don’t get these kinds of fully realized characters, or strong emotional reactions from an audience, without expert casting. The film’s casting directors, Nafisa Kaptownwala and Natalie Lin, were clearly up to the task. Their background in street casting, commercials, and fashion, as well as shared experiences with the characters, made them uniquely suited for DÌDI’s coming-of-age story.

Nafisa Kaptownwala and Natalie Lin, Casting Directors

This film focuses on some pretty specific dynamics that can be really challenging from a casting standpoint— a group of young teens, as well as a multigenerational family. How did you approach these challenges to help create the level of authenticity the film and actors were able to achieve?

NAFISA KAPTOWNWALA: This is a tricky question! I think because I don’t look at some roles more challenging than others. Every role has its challenges, and ultimately, I approach it by understanding the story and what the narrative is illustrating and visualizing who are the best people to bring that to life. I start there and take each challenge as it comes.

DÌDI has a very talented young lead, played by Izaac Wang, and includes so many other young actors. How do you go about casting first time or less experienced actors, especially when you know they have to carry a film?

NATALIE LIN: Our approach with street casting is much different than our approach with trained actors. When we’re out street scouting looking for people to audition for film roles, really what we’re after is someone who’s essence naturally embodies the role already without having to try much.

NK: I think the hesitation with casting first time actors is performance, but in the case of DÌDI, it is a universal story in so many ways and many of the actors were able to connect with the story and put themselves in it. Because it is such a relatable story, it actually felt like the only approach that made sense, to find people that relate to the story to basically play themselves.

At what point did Joan Chen become involved? Given that she is such a veteran and a director herself, I’d love to hear more about what it was like finding that vital mother-son dynamic in the casting process with her.

NL: Sean had her in mind for Chungsing from day one. We were all thrilled to have her join our cast and it really feels like the role was meant for her.

Since this is a very personal film for the director, Sean Wang, how do you honor that in the casting, especially when you’re casting characters inspired by real people? Was that something you discussed with him going in?

NL: I grew up in the Bay Area about an hour away from Fremont, and I think that because of this I had a natural understanding of Sean’s instincts when it came to what kind of kids we were drawn to amongst the various roles. Sean did a really thorough job of painting a vivid picture of each character for Nafisa and me. He gave us all his trust in finding these kids, and the entire casting process with both him and our producers felt very collaborative. They all trusted in our process and our instincts and everything came together like a little puzzle. Truly could not have asked for a sweeter introduction into the feature world than with this team.

NK: Sean showed us a lot of photos from the past and inspo images of people he knew. It felt very close to home! I didn’t grow up in the Bay, but I did grow up in a very similar community, of mostly 1st and 2nd generation immigrants around the same time as Sean! It didn’t take much imagination to capture what Sean was expressing because I felt like I lived it.

The aesthetics and technology from 2008 play such a big role in this film; and yet its themes are so timeless. How did you approach that duality in the casting process, where it’s a period piece but still needs to resonate with kids today?

NL: I think there are some universal truths to being thirteen years old that span beyond any time period. Teaching the kids how to take a Myspace selfie was a whole thing, down to the camera angles and the mirror flash 🙂

NK: There were definitely a bunch of references that the kids would trip over in auditions. Like I remember the young people we would audition not knowing how to pronounce PETA. And that really stuck with me, cause you would assume that’s a universal thing, but some things just don’t translate generationally, I suppose. But ultimately, what was happening in 2008 is not radically far off from what’s happening now, especially packaged in the overarching themes the film deals with. It was easy enough for the actors to understand. Like the boys in the film were making silly YouTube videos, and now the kids are making TikToks. Not so different! And in so many ways, the aesthetics of that era like digital cameras and myspace photos are actually back.

Your agency, In Search Of, also does casting for fashion and advertising. How did your experience in those mediums inform your process for this film?

NK: Well we treat all of the projects we approach with the same attitude, by asking ourselves: What is the story we’re trying to tell? What are all of the expansive ways to illustrate that story? Because advertising moves so quickly, we’ve learned to be experts at finding sort of niche characters in a very short amount of time. There are a lot of skills we develop working on quick turnover projects we apply to our film work and vice versa.

I saw you had an open casting call on Instagram for this film, as well as your upcoming film Josephine. What’s it like using Instagram for casting purposes, and what role do you think social media will play in the future of casting?

NL: Social media is a very helpful resource for us when it comes to sharing casting calls and looking for specific types of talent. The sprawling nature of Instagram and TikTok was extremely helpful while casting DÌDI. We were able to get in touch with many film orgs who shared our nationwide casting call posts, and between us, Sean, and the production team we had so many friends in the Bay Area and beyond who shared our call far and wide. Someone on TikTok shared our casting call – it went kind of viral, and we had a flood of submissions after that.

NK: I think social media has already transformed casting enormously. What I’ve noticed is that it does allow this space for “first time actors” to be considered for roles because we’re exposed to so many interesting and dynamic people online. Now we’re in a world where movies are being made about people because of how they represent themselves on social media. I think that’s a really exciting space to play in, because it allows for more nuanced and diverse storytelling.

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