How Tribeca Doc ‘Holding Liat’ Found It’s Footing in Film Independent’s Fast Track
Applications for Fast Track 2025 are now open, with a non-Member deadline of June 9 (Film Independent Members have until June 23).
Holding Liat, the Best Documentary winner from this year’s Berlinale, is having it’s North American premiere June 9 at the Tribeca Film Festival, but the journey it took to get there was a complicated one. Brothers Brandon Kramer (Director) and Lance Kramer (Producer) found themselves in a unique situation after the events of October 7th 2023. While checking in with their Israeli-American family members, they found that their relative Liat Beinin Atzili had been kidnapped along with her husband Aviv Atzili from their kibbutz in Southern Israel. Liat is an American citizen, and her parents told the brothers about their plan to go to Washington D.C. to lobby American lawmakers to try to get their daughter and husband back.
“We did not know what was about to unfold, but we felt an imperative to start documenting the family’s experience,” said Brandon. “We were immediately thrust into the process of telling an urgent story that was unfolding rapidly in two continents, with very little control, predictability or certain outcomes.”
The brothers followed a fast-moving story, and the process was all-consuming. When the filmmakers felt like it was time to start to share their project, they needed a partner that could help fine tune their message.
“In the chaos of a storytelling process where production and post-production occurred simultaneously, we did not have much time to chart the course for a distribution plan, let alone understand how to put our hopes and goals for the film into words,” they said.
“We sought out the Film Independent Fast Track program for mentorship and camaraderie as we emerged from the field and edit room and into conversations with various industry leaders, and to better understand the funding and distribution landscape for an independent film tackling such complex themes.”
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.
Designed to connect producer-director teams with industry leaders and put projects on the fast track, the market consists of meetings with top executives, financiers, agents, managers, distributors, granting organizations and production companies.
“Having to pitch our film to 30 different industry leaders in the course of two days forced a critical reckoning to distill the enormity of the film into a cohesive and succinct presentation. We reexamined essential questions about the story we were telling, how we were telling it, who we hoped we were telling the story for, and why we were telling this story,” The brothers said. “The lab accelerated months of development work into a matter of days.”
One of the things the Kramers felt lead to their success was the advanced pitch practice sessions, where they could try out their pitch with mentors before talking to distributors and financers at the big event. “The feedback from our mentor in the practice sessions helped us to gain the clarity and confidence to more directly convey the nuances of the story itself without feeling the need to fill in every possible gap, leaving the listener the space to ask questions or form their own reactions.”
The film had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, where the film also won the Best Documentary Award. The brothers went from having only a few people knowing about their project to having the world’s attention. They credit the work they did honing their pitch to being able to field questions about their project on a bigger stage.
“Overnight, we found ourselves having to talk about the film in front of thousands of people in-person and on dozens of international high-profile platforms. The preparation at Fast Track was an essential part of becoming ready for this moment.”
Fast Track is returning this November, and applications for the program are now open. Previous Fast Track projects include Bing Liu’s Academy Award-nominated Minding the Gap; Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, and Saim Sadiq’s Cannes Un Certain Regard and Spirit Award Winner Joyland. Other notable filmmakers who have participated in the program include Ana Lily Amirpour, Sean Baker, James Ponsoldt, Tina Mabry, Lana Wilson and Chloé Zhao.
Previous industry participants include 30WEST, Searchlight, MACRO, Mandalay Pictures, Netflix, Participant Media, Plan B, Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions and more.
For more information on the application deadline please visit our applications page.
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