Fast Track Returns with 15 Projects and 34 Filmmakers Meeting Face-to-Face with Industry Heavyweights PLUS: $80k in Grants
Fast track is back for its 23rd year, and it’s rare that you see so many Hollywood decision makers all in one place. Besides the Oscars. And Sundance. Oh, Cannes too. The Spirits…. Never mind. What is unique is that these industry heavyweights are all in one place to make indie film happen. Over three days, 15 different filmmaking teams will meet with a wide range of financiers, production companies, reps and other industry professionals as part of a film-financing market, and hopefully take their projects to the next level.
On top of that, we’re awarding $80,000 through three grants, the Sloan Fast Track Grant and Sloan Distribution Grant for films with science and tech themes at their core, and the MPAC®️ Hollywood Bureau Fellowship for a filmmaker that identifies as Muslim American.
“We’re thrilled to welcome this year’s Fast Track participants, whose bold mix of fiction and nonfiction projects push creative boundaries and reflect the diverse voices shaping contemporary cinema,” said Dea Vazquez, Associate Director of Fiction Programs. “Bringing these visionary filmmakers together with key industry leaders at the finance market is an exciting opportunity to help them secure the support needed to bring their stories to life,” added Daniel Cardone, Senior Manager of Nonfiction Programs and Fiscal Sponsorship.
Here are the 15 hand-picked projects that are getting face time with some of the biggest players in Hollywood this week–
FICTION TRACK:
All in My Family
Writer/Director: Hao Wu
Producer: Lucia Liu
Logline: When a struggling Taiwanese American documentary filmmaker decides to have a baby with his boyfriend through surrogacy, the ensuing chaos forces him to navigate family acceptance, cultural expectations and relationship challenges.
Bangbang Teahouse
Writer/Director: Courtney Loo
Producers: Rachael Fung, David Karp, Mikey Schwartz-Wright
Logline: Mimi & Hayley, the two parts of famed Chinese American music duo Bangbang, find their professional and romantic relationship at a crossroads; everything they’ve built precariously teeters with their new album. Over the course of 48 frenetic hours in New York City, they’ll stop at nothing as they desperately convince their label to release it.
Best Man
Director: Tyler Rabinowitz
Producer: Nico Blanco
Logline: Years after being friend-dumped for being gay, a millennial groom-to-be’s picture-perfect Boston life unravels when his chaotic ex-best friend from high school reenters his life — newly out and annoyingly hot.
But We Slept Soundly
Writer/Director: Jake Kolton
Producer: Myriam Schroeter
Logline: A bourgeois Brooklynite’s comfortable reality unravels when he begins to suspect his husband is responsible for a hit and run.
Gone By Morning
Writer/Director: Diego Ongaro
Producer: Rob Cristiano
Logline: When Lucy, a free-spirited dancer, returns home to her family’s Montana horse ranch, she’s forced to reckon with the life she built on her own and the one she thought she left behind.
Killing Jar
Writer/Director: Etzu Shaw
Producer: Galt Niederhoffer
Logline: Burdened by guilt after her mother’s abrupt death, an insect researcher decides to undertake her own forensic entomology investigation to uncover the truth.
Killing Jar is also the recipient of Sloan Fast Track Grant, a $20,000 grant to support the production of a project exploring themes of science and technology or characters engaging with science and technology in engaging and innovative ways.)
Not My Name
Writer/Director: Juan Paulo Laserna
Producer: Valeria Contreras
Logline: In 1996 Colombia, a family travels under false identities to visit their dying patriarch. As fear and deceit consume them, ten-year-old Álvaro drifts toward the darkness they hoped to escape.
The Umbra
Writer/Director: Rider Strong
Producers: Alexandra Barreto, Taylor Feltner
Logline: When his partner Orion commits suicide, David Alturo ventures deep into the redwoods to confront Orion’s hermit father. But soon, the men work together to complete Orion’s final, mysterious invention…
When the River Split Open
Writer/Director: Jess X. Snow
Producer: Petrus van Staden
Logline: On an overdue visit to their ancestral land, an impulsive Chinese American escapes their over-protective maternal family to search for their estranged father—whose disappearance is entwined with the extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin.
With Your Permission
Writer/Director: Sahar Jahani
Producer: Ashim Ahuja
Logline: With Your Permission is about three Iranian American Muslim sisters navigating their relationship to intimacy when they discover their sixty-year-old, widowed mother is getting remarried, forcing them to re- examine everything they thought they knew about love, family and forgiveness.
The MPAC®️ Hollywood Bureau Fellowship, a $10,000 grant awarded to a filmmaker who identifies as American Muslim, will go to Sahar Jahani for With Your Permission.
DOCUMENTARY TRACK:
Counted
Co-Director/Producer: Erica Tanamachi
Co-Director/Director of Photography/Producer: Joseph East
Producer: Evan Mascagni
Logline: Counted follows Southern activists as they turn the trauma of pregnancy in prison into a movement to end prison birth and transform a broken system.
*holds you tight*
Director/Producer: Jane M. Wagner
Producer: Joe Weil
Logline: A lonely night watchman develops a relationship with an AI chatbot, transforming his worldview and challenging his perception of identity and reality.
Love and Justice: The Arlene Carmen Story
Directors/Producers: Linda Goldstein Knowlton, Tessa Carmen DeRoy
Logline: Arlene Carmen was the Administrator of Judson Memorial Church from 1967 to 1994. In partnership with Reverend Howard Moody she ran the multi-denominational Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion which connected 500,000 women to safe abortion care, prior to Roe V. Wade; created a ministry for street walking prostitutes; and distributed experimental treatments to early AIDS patients from the church garden room. Much of their work was illegal.
Symphony of Silence
Director: Julianne Sato-Parker
Producer: Bridie Bischoff
Logline: Symphony of Silence is a character-driven feature documentary about two people brought together by the belief that listening has the power to change the world.
The Quiet Part
Director: Rachel Lauren Mueller
Producer: Ariel Tilson
Logline: When a pagan white supremacist group takes root in a quiet American farming town, it ignites an intense struggle over who has the right to belong.
And just to show we weren’t kidding about the amount of Industry participants, the list includes: 30WEST, 3Pas Studios, ABL Casting / Independent, American Cinematheque, Anonymous Content, Austin Film Festival, Bleecker Street, Blumhouse Productions, Book of Shadows, CAA, Cinephil, Cinetic Media, Closer Media, Concordia, Concourse Media, Construction Films, David Magdael & Associates, Inc, DocList, Duplass Brothers, Entertainment 360, EverWonder Studio, Giant Leap Media Ventures, Giant Pictures, Hulu / The Walt Disney Company, Hyde Park Entertainment, IDA, Impact Partners, Independent Artist Group, Jigsaw Productions, Kennedy Marshall, Kinema, Ley Line, Lit Entertainment, Luz Films, MACRO, Magnolia Pictures, Marginal Mediaworks, Monkeypaw Productions, National Geographic, NEON, Organic, Oxbelly, Park Pictures, Pinky Promise, Pressman Films, Roadside Attractions, Saturnia Film, Searchlight Pictures, SFFILM, ShivHans Pictures, Skye Films Ltd, Solidarity Media Network, Sons of Rigor, Sony Pictures Classics, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Storm City Films, Sundance, Tango Entertainment, The Film Collaborative, The Film Sales Company, Topic Studios, Tribeca Festival, Tribeca Studios, Unapologetic Projects, Unnecessary Pictures, Verve Ventures, Visit Films, Wavelength, WME, Wonder Project, Words & Pictures and XYZ Films.
Previous Fast Track projects include 2025 Berlinale winner for Best Documentary Holding Liat from Brandon and Lance Kramer; Shih-Ching Tsou’s Left-Handed Girl, co-written, edited and produced by Sean Baker, which premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival; Bing Liu’s Academy Award-nominated Minding the Gap produced by Diane Quon; Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt produced by Maria Altamirano, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was released by A24. Other notable filmmakers who have participated in the program include Ana Lily Amirpour, Sean Baker, James Ponsoldt, Tina Mabry, Lana Wilson and Chloé Zhao.
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