Here are the Fiction & Documentary Producing Lab Fellows Celebrating 25 Years of the Film Independent Producing Lab BONUS: $30k Sloan Grant Awarded
To have a 25-year career in the world of indie producing is no easy feat. You have to have resourcefulness, an eye for talent, and a dedication to see projects from a nascent spark of an idea to a fully-formed box office hit. The same could be said of the Film Independent Producing Labs which have their own impressive track record, and are celebrating their 25th year with two new cohorts ready to become Hollywood’s next heavy hitters. This year we’ve selected seven producers for the 2025 Fiction Producing Lab, and six producers completed the second annual Documentary Producing Lab.
At a critical time in the indie film world, the Labs’ aim to both workshop their projects and give Fellows the tools for a sustainable career. “As producing independent films becomes more of an uphill climb in today’s marketplace, we are proud to be able to provide a space for the Fellows to develop their projects and their careers as creative producers,” said Dea Vazquez, Associate Director of Fiction Programs.
“With the support of seasoned advisors, they’re developing projects that speak loudly and with clarity and purpose—reminding us of the vital role documentaries play in how we understand our world,” added Daniel Cardone, Senior Manager of Nonfiction Programs.
THE FICTION PRODUCING LAB
This year’s Fiction Producing Lab, celebrating its 25th anniversary, runs October 6–17, 2025. In the program, each Fellow will pair with a Creative Advisor, workshop with experienced producers, and gain real-world business and editorial guidance designed to help their projects across the finish line.
We brought in some heavy hitters to share their expertise with the Fellows too. This year’s Advisors and Guest Speakers includeTyler Boehm, Jon Coplon, Fanshen Cox, Sheila Hanahan Taylor, Daniel Tantalean, Chris Kaye, Ben LeClair, Amanda Marshall, Alexandria Martin, Lauren Mann, Khaliah Neal, Ryan Paine, Anne-Elisa Schaffer, Lauren Shelton, Annalisa Shoemaker, Lena Vurma, Monique Walton and Zoë Worth.
The Sloan Producers Grant is also being awarded to David Rafailedes for their project Satoshi. The $30,000 grant is awarded to a project whose screenplay integrates science or technology themes and characters into dramatic stories.
Let’s take a look at this year’s fellows & their projects:
Gabrielle Cordero
Bio: Gabrielle Cordero is a Mexican-American producer from the Bay Area and an AFI Producing graduate (2019). Her short films Big Touch and Elle premiered at the 2020 Rhode Island International Film Festival, where Elle won the Marlyn Mason Award. She has been selected for HBO/HFPA’s Tomorrow’s Filmmakers Today (2019, 2020), NALIP’s Latino Lens Incubator (2021), and is a PGA Diversity Workshop alum. She co-created Gringas with Christina Kingsleigh Licud and sold a show to Hulu’s Onyx Collective. Gabrielle recently produced her feature debut, Forge, premiering at SXSW 2025, and is in production on her next feature, Progeny.
Project: Altrove
Logline: After the family breaks apart, an Italian immigrant, an Afro-Latina American woman, and their 7-year-old son struggle to find a sense of home. A revealing exploration of each of their lives uncovers the depths of their regrets, fears, and sorrows, as well as their journey towards acceptance.
Adam Kopp
Bio: Adam Kopp is a film and television producer and executive currently developing a slate of independent projects, including Fuckboy, a new feature from Ben Mullinkosson and Michael Barth, which recently wrapped production in Chengdu, China. Before producing independently, Kopp led Universal Remote, the production company behind Netflix’s Emmy-winning Beef. His additional producing credits include Evan Twohy’s debut Bubble & Squeak (Sundance 2025) and Kelly Oxford’s debut Pink Skies Ahead (SXSW 2020). Kopp is a graduate of NYU’s Gallatin School and is originally from St. Louis, Missouri.
Project: Challenger: An American Dream
Logline: A seventeen-year-old student, who is in love with her favorite teacher, Mrs. McAuliffe, strums the right chord on her Stratocaster and enters a wormhole that takes her back in time to the night of the Challenger explosion, beginning her fantastical journey to save her teacher and prevent the disaster.
David Rafailedes
Bio: David Rafailedes is a Detroit-based writer, director, and producer. He is a 2024 Sundance Screenwriters/Directors Lab Fellow and the co-recipient of the NYU/Sloan Feature Film Prize with Satoshi. Rafailedes is the co-playwright of the hit off-Broadway play, Cellino v. Barnes, which was awarded Time Out New York’s Best Comedy of 2024. His debut short film, Never Been Kissed, premiered at the Cleveland International Film Festival and won the audience award at the SOHO International Film Festival. Rafailedes is a recent alumnus of the NYU Graduate Film Dual Degree program, receiving an MFA and MBA in producing.
Project: Satoshi
Logline: After her family loses everything in the 2008 financial crisis, a teenage anime-obsessed hacktivist realizes money isn’t fair, so she sets out to reinvent it with a new currency called Bitcoin.
*2025 Film Independent Alfred P. Sloan Producers Grant Recipient
Ebony Elaine Hardin
Bio: Ebony Elaine Hardin is an LA-based producer with roots in casting for TV, film, and Broadway. She is passionate about blending humor with cultural resonance, and her independent work has screened at more than 40 festivals worldwide, including Fantastic Fest, BlackStar, Beyond Fest, and Fantaspoa. As Supervising Producer at Dropout TV, Hardin manages physical production, budgeting, and strategy for one of the most innovative independent comedy platforms today. She is a proud Film Independent Project Involve and Women In Film Producers Lab alum. Hardin holds a BFA in Drama from Carnegie Mellon University with a minor in Business Administration.
Project: Trashy People
Logline: Stripped of her future by a lost scholarship, a brilliant teen infiltrates the college system from the inside—working at the recycling center by day and crashing lectures by night—all in a desperate quest to revolutionize plastic recycling and prove she belongs.
Betty Hu
Bio: Betty Hu is a Chinese-born producer. With extensive experience in China, Hong Kong, and the U.S., Hu discovers daring stories about identities, family dynamics, and social changes in modern Asian communities. Hu’s producer credits include Finis Terrae, Special Mention FEDIC winner at 2020 Venice International Film Festival; Hieu, winner of the Deuxième Prix at Cannes Cinéfondation 2019; and Audition, Best Live-Action Short winner at Santa Barbara Film Festival. Hu was the associate producer of World of Tales (2019). Currently, she’s developing narrative feature Uncle Hiep’s Casino, selected by Film Independent Fast Track and recipient of the Rainin Grant.
Project: Uncle Hiep’s Casino
Logline: Somewhere between his mother’s house and his uncle’s illegal casino, an ex-prisoner finds a new life.
Rui Xu
Bio: Rui Xu is a Chinese-born, LA-based, award-winning producer committed to supporting daring voices and innovative forms through the facilitation of independent filmmaking. Recent work includes Hieu, a Deuxième Prix winner of the Cinéfondation at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival, and Finis Terrae, which received the Special Mention FEDIC for Best Short Film at the 77th Venice International Film Festival. Xu is currently developing features, Caretaker and Uncle Hiep’s Casino with her CalArts fellows. Xu serves as the co-executive director at Chinese in Entertainment, a nonprofit with a mission to support professionals with Chinese heritage in the entertainment industry.
Project: Uncle Hiep’s Casino
Logline: Somewhere between his mother’s house and his uncle’s illegal casino, an ex-prisoner finds a new life.
Ashim Ahuja
Bio: Ashim Ahuja, a 2018 Project Involve Fellow, is a producer whose focus is on films that combine indie heart and sensibility with mass market appeal. Ahuja has worked across film/tv in production, development and post-production, with companies like Disney, A24, Lionsgate, Apple, Hulu and Macro. Films include We’re All Gonna Die (SXSW 2024), directed by longtime RocketJump collaborators Freddie Wong & Matt Arnold. Handle With Care (Completed), written and directed by Matthew James Thompson & starring Justin Min, and Patel (Post Production), written and directed by Ravi Kapoor starring Utkarsh Ambudkar, Richa Moorjani, Kunal Nayyar, Danny Pudi and Kal Penn.
Project: With Your Permission
Logline: A dark comedy about three Iranian-American Muslim sisters navigating their relationship to intimacy when they discover their widowed mother is getting remarried, forcing them to re-examine everything they thought they knew about love, family and forgiveness.
THE DOCUMENTARY PRODUCING LAB
The Documentary Producing Lab, now in its second year, grew out of Artist Developments continued investment in the non-fiction world. It concluded on September 19th and took on doc producers with projects in production or post, and focused on both the editing and directing, as well as the business side with Fellows being paired with creative and business consultants, and learned about fundraising, sustaining careers and managing projects, and concluded with a networking day with industry professionals.
During the Lab, filmmakers worked with Lead Producing Advisors Ina Fichman, Diane Becker, Alysa Nahmias, Trevite Willis, Megan Gilbride and Danielle Varga. Guest speakers were Sarba Das, Amit Dey, Steven Berger, Orly Ravid and Annalisa Shoemaker.
Jacob Fertig
Bio: Jacob Fertig is a nonfiction producer and director, working across shorts, features, and interactive media. His films have played at festivals including SXSW, Hot Docs, AFI, NOFF, and Doc10, and been published by Scientific American and New York Magazine. He has been a featured speaker and panelist at SXSW and NYU, and selected pitcher at Big Sky Pitch, Edinburgh Pitch, Ji.hlava New Visions Forum, AFO Camp 4Science, and AIDC. His archival producing work spans museums to magazines, including permanent exhibits at Ellis Island and The Holocaust Center. His projects have received support from Ford Foundation, Field of Vision, Tribeca Institute, Doc Society, Jewish Story Partners, Amnesty International, Forensic Architecture, and Docs by the Sea. He is a former Doc Society Art & Impact Fellow, Full Frame Fellow, NYU Feature Development Studio Fellow, and a Senior Fellow at Humanity in Action. He holds a BFA in Film & Television from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and an MPA in Public Policy from NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Jacob is Co-Founder of Denizen Studios in New York.
Project: Abstract
Logline: Two searches are underway in the deserts of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands— the most surveilled border region in the world. One seeks the dead, the other stalks the living. Each pursues the migrant body beyond recognition. What is lost – ethically, emotionally, and politically – when we fail to see beyond systems of control?
DaManuel Richardson
Bio: Born and raised in the American South, DaManuel’s rural upbringing fuels his passion for stories rooted in identity, nature, and intergenerational healing. He is a creative producer at Hello Benjamin Films, where he develops bold fiction and nonfiction work supported by major institutions including the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms, Sundance Documentary Fund, and Field of Vision. His latest project, Artificial Horizon, was presented at Ji.hlava New Visions Forum (2024) and Big Sky Pitch (2025), and projects he has produced have screened internationally at world-renowned festivals including IFFR, BlackStar, and Dokufest. He previously collaborated with the Oscar-winning team behind Everything Everywhere All at Once, programmed shorts for Sundance, and continues to consult for major documentary funds—all while tending a thriving garden in Los Angeles.
Project: Artificial Horizon
Logline: Artificial Horizon explores the social and natural histories of former plantation land in Alabama, an origin point for the filmmaker’s family, whose members live on either side of (and sometimes cross) the “color line.” The film examines how boundaries are inscribed and looks to plants as models for subverting systems of control.
Khaula Malik
Bio: Khaula Haider Malik is an Emmy-Award winning filmmaker based in New York City. She most recently co-produced Apple TV+’s Girls State. She is currently in post-production on her first feature doc which has been supported by DOCNYC and the Catapult Rough Cut Retreat. Khaula’s work has been supported by The Sundance Institute, CAAM, Doris Duke Foundation, and others. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Sight & Sound, PBS. She is a graduate of the MFA program at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, and served as a programmer for the True/False Film Festival from 2022-2024.
Project: Dear You
Logline: After escaping an abusive marriage and fleeing to the US, Grace James finds herself trapped in the US asylum system for 10 years. In this poetic portrait of a woman in limbo, haunting memories begin to resurface of Grace’s past life and her disappearing homeland—the island nation of Kiribati.
Beth Levison
Bio: Beth Levison is an Emmy and Peabody-winning producer/director committed to artful storytelling and strengthening the documentary field. Her 2022 producing effort, The Martha Mitchell Effect (dirs. Anne Alvergue/Debra McClutchy, producing partner Judith Mizrachy), about Watergate whistleblower and Republican cabinet wife Martha Mitchell, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, launched on Netflix, and was nominated for a 2023 Academy Award (Best Documentary Short category). Her previous film, Storm Lake, which she directed alongside DP Jerry Risius and also produced, broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2022 and was nominated for a Peabody and an Emmy. Other producing credits include the Independent Spirit Awards-winning A Photographic Memory (a Kino Lorber release, 2025), Women in Blue (Independent Lens, 2021) and 32 PILLS (HBO, 2017). Executive producer credits include Land with No Rider (True/False, 2025), the 2-time BIFA-winning Grand Theft Hamlet (MUBI, 2025), 3-time IDA Awards nominee, My Sweet Land (Sheffield, 2024) and With Peter Bradley (PBS, 2024). Levison is also the founder of Hazel Pictures; a consultant on numerous documentary films; a co-founder of the Documentary Producers Alliance; faculty at Sarah Lawrence College; and a member of the Academy.
Project: Postmortem
Logline: Postmortem, a cross-platform project, is a boundary-pushing, family crime drama about an abused girl who didn’t tell her childhood secret and the woman she becomes, who does.
Bryn Silverman
Bio: Bryn is a documentary filmmaker based in Louisville, KY. She is drawn to stories that explore self-determination and she loves a good archive. In 2024, she was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Her latest films include The People Could Fly (a POV and Chicken & Egg co-production) and Emmy nominated Beekeeper. Her directorial debut Expression of Illness was nominated for Best Emerging Director at the 2025 Melbourne Documentary Film Festival and won Special Jury Recognition for Best Documentary Short at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. Her movies have screened at True/False, SXSW, DC/DOX, Hot Docs, DOC NYC, Big Sky, NOFF, Blackstar, among others. She is currently producing Pinball, an ITVS co-production that has been supported by the Sundance Film Institute, CAAM, the New Orleans Film Society, Just Films, the Southern Documentary Fund, Sheffield Meet Market, Hot Docs Deal Maker and others. She is also producing Vestibule, with which she won the 2024 Points North Pitch and the 2023 Ji.hlava New Visions Forum. She was a Southern Producers Lab Fellow and is a board member of the Documentary Producers Alliance. She also co-founded Hyphen Film Center in Louisville, KY.
Project: Pinball
Logline: A feature documentary that follows 19-year-old Yosef in suburban Louisville, Kentucky as he dives into the memories of his journey from Iraq to America and what it ultimately means for him to chase his dreams in the shadow of a war that displaced his family from their Iraqi homeland.
Hansen Lin
Bio: Hansen Lin is an independent filmmaker, producer and founder of TimeLight Films. Born and raised in China, he is now based in New York. His latest producing credit, 16Always (Dir. Deming Chen, 2025), won the DOX:AWARD at CPH:DOX, Best Picture at the JEONJU International Film Festival, and Best Editing at DocsBarcelona. He produces documentaries and fiction films that explore new cinematic language and form. His work includes numerous films and short documentary series centered on Asian and Asian American communities, amplifying underrepresented voices and stories. He is a member of the Documentary Producers Alliance (DPA) and the Asian American Documentary Network (A-Doc).
Project: Queens Ballroom
Logline: In a New York ballroom, Asian American immigrants are transported through dance, revisiting worlds they left behind and lives created anew.
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 in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
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 us with a donation, click here.
Keep up with Film Independent…
