Guest moderator Janelle Riley (Variety) talks to the folks behind LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY: writer/director/producer Francis Galluppi, EP/actor Jim Cummings, actor Jocelin Donahue and cinematographer Mac Fisken.

New York’s Tribeca Film Festival is turning 22 this year (one year since the Festival has been able to drink, three more years until it can rent a car), and from June 5-16 will be bringing another bumper crop of American and international indies to film screens in lower Manhattan. And sure, we’d all like to eat cannolis with Robert De Niro at one of those fancy bakeries they have down there, but unfortunately not all of us are talented…

Filmmaker Ethan Hawke (Chelsea Walls, Blaze) talks to Film Independent President Josh Welsh about his new film WILDCAT, starring his daughter Maya Hawke (Stranger Things) as author Flannery O'Connor.

Film Independent's Alana Waksman talks to Oscar-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom, Won't You Be My Neighbor) about his new two-part Steve Martin documentary on Apple+.

With a career spanning 25 years, music supervisor Matt Biffa is a specialist in source music research and copyright clearance. His projects include Sex Education, I May Destroy You, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Paddington, Carol, The End of the F**king World and, most recently, the Max comedy series Hacks.

As creative people who care about making a difference with our art, can we afford not to care about the impact we make on our environment? What's the story we tell about our place in the world with the way we make our films? Can you save money on production costs while saving the planet?

“We are not there to be the sex police. We actually want it to look really good and we’re very highly trained in how to do that” –Rebecca Johannsen, on the role of an intimacy coordinator

From the sweeping vistas of The Searchers to the towering Transformers of Age of Extinction, the mesas and monuments of Utah’s southern half have been a regular presence in film since the earliest days of the medium. In fact, throughout 2024 the “Beehive State” has been celebrating its considerable cinematic heritage with the exhibition “100 Years of Utah Film and Television” on display now at the Capitol Building in Salt Lake City.

Film Independent Senior Programmer Jenn Wilson talks to the filmmakers behind the Paramount+ original feature LITTLE WING: director Dean Israelite, producer Naomi Despres, writer John Gatins and journalist Susan Orlean.

A film set is a remarkable place, with infinite possibilities: a societal microcosm full of creative craftspeople performing their individual roles. Everyone on set plays their part and works hard (making movies is hard work, after all) to create a smooth workflow and contribute to their project’s success. But too often, film sets are also incredibly wasteful places—from discarded plastic bottles to leftover food, inefficient energy use, idling vehicle emissions and more.

Do you remember the very first moment when you realized a movie could be far more than just a brief, amiable diversion from the temporal slog of life as an extant human? That first moment you realized film could be art capable of providing a fully nourishing spiritual experience? That perhaps even made you want to become a filmmaker in order to provide that experience to someone else? Just as important: Do you recall the most recent movie that gave…

So you want to be a filmmaker or work in entertainment, but have no clue where to start? Well, thank God you’re reading this right now! Each year, Film Independent provides programs and Labs dedicated to helping filmmakers from marginalized communities get their stories made.

Since its inception, Film Independent’s Fast Track Finance Market has been a powerful ally to filmmakers, providing a structured-and-stacked space within which to pitch projects to independent media’s most adventurous advocates. Each year, Film Independent selects up to 10 fiction and five non-fiction feature projects to participate in an intensive film finance market that takes place over four days in November.

Exterior. Establishing: Film Independent HQ. Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles. PRELAP the sounds of passionate conversation and laughter. CUT TO: Interior, Conference Room, Film Independent HQ. Seven new screenwriting FELLOWS are arrayed around a table, the Hollywood Sign visible on the distant hills outside the window.

Film Independent promotes unique independent voices by helping filmmakers create and advance new work. To become a Member of Film Independent, just click here. To support

It’s true! No, seriously: it’s true. And by “it” we of course mean the stories at the heart of Film Independent’s 2024 Doc Story Lab. A one-week intensive designed to provide support for filmmakers whose projects are in post-production, the Doc Story Lab is one of two Documentary Labs amid the larger Film Independent Artist Development umbrella of talent incubators, which for over 30 years have been the place to spot future media-visionary movers-and-shakers.

Film Independent’s Fiscal Sponsorship program supports an inclusive variety of projects,narrative and nonfiction, shorts and features, as well as the occasional new media project, special event or advocacy initiative. Each month, our Fiscal Spotlight column introduces three new fiscally-sponsored projects worth supporting.

If you’re as deeply immersed in the particulars of the independent film world as we are, you’ve probably sensed a sort of crisis of career sustainability recently boiling over. More and more, indie makers across all disciplines are finding it difficult to build protections around the financial aspects of their work.