By FIW staff

Film Industry Watch recently received an email from an anonymous industry source about Next Step Studio Indonesia, the new initiative tied to La Semaine de la Critique in Cannes. The source did not want to be identified. The reason was blunt:

“I am not writing this to be published as I am scared for my life and my career.”

FIW cannot independently verify the source’s personal fears. But the message captures something many filmmakers describe privately and almost never publicly: a system so small, so networked, and so punitive that even asking basic questions about favoritism can feel dangerous.

On paper, Next Step Studio Indonesia sounds like an admirable initiative. Critics’ Week says the program brings together eight emerging directors, four local and four international, to co-write and co-direct four short films in Indonesia. Those films are then presented in world premiere at Critics’ Week in Cannes as part of a dedicated “Next Step Presents” screening. The directors also pitch their first or second features to buyers, broadcasters, distributors and co-producers. Critics’ Week adds that the films are produced and financed locally, and that the 2026 Indonesia edition is co-produced by Yulia Evina Bhara and Dominique Welinski, funded by local institutions and the Jakarta government, in partnership with the French Embassy and the Institut Français in Indonesia. In other words, this is not a casual workshop. It is a publicly backed access platform with obvious market value.

That is exactly why the selection process matters. And that is exactly where the official material becomes strangely quiet. In the Critics’ Week announcement and the public Next Step materials reviewed by FIW, the institution explains what the program offers, how prestigious it is, and how it can launch careers. What FIW could not locate in those public-facing materials was a clearly stated application route, selection criteria, or recusal policy for this Indonesia edition. The announcement even notes that some of the international filmmakers involved in Next Step Studio come from the wider Next Step workshops orbit, which only deepens the sense of an already circulating pipeline rather than a clearly open field.

That absence would already be a problem. It becomes a much bigger one when one looks at the participants and the professional ties surrounding them.

In the official social-media announcement shared with FIW, Critics’ Week named the four Indonesian directors as Shelby Kho, Khozy Rizal, Reza Rahadian and Reza Fahriansyah, paired respectively with Sein Lyan Tun, Lam Li Shuen, Sam Manacsa and Ananth Subramaniam. The question FIW then asked was simple: how many of these names are already professionally connected to Yulia Evina Bhara, one of the co-producers of the program?

The answer is: enough to make this impossible to dismiss as bad optics alone.

Reza Fahriansyah has a publicly listed project, (Un)Holy, with Yulia Evina Bhara named as one of the producers, and KawanKawan Media listed as the production company. That is not a vague industry adjacency. That is a direct producing relationship.

Sein Lyan Tun also has a direct public project connection. Berlinale Talents lists The Beer Girl in Yangon with Yulia Evina Bhara as producer and Kawankawan Media among the production companies. Again, not rumor. Not gossip. A documented professional tie.

Sam Manacsa has likewise been publicly linked to a project involving Yulia. Variety reported that The Void is Immense in Idle Hours, directed by Sam Manacsa, is a Filipino-Indonesian co-production involving Yulia Evina Bhara.

The Shelby Kho connection is one step removed, but still revealing. Red Sea’s 2024 project materials list Shelby Kho’s Terbakar with Si En Tan as producer. Separately, official market and festival materials for Don’t Cry, Butterfly list Tan Si En and Yulia Evina Bhara together as producers on the same film. So even where the tie is not directly between the selected director and Yulia, it still runs through the same professional cluster.

This is where defenders of the system always reach for the same line: maybe these filmmakers are simply talented. Maybe the producer knows them because good producers work with strong people. Maybe there is nothing improper here.

That is not an answer. It is an evasion.

The issue is not whether these filmmakers have talent. The issue is whether a Cannes-linked, publicly backed, career-accelerating platform should be allowed to operate without clearly disclosed public safeguards while multiple selected participants already have direct professional ties to one of its co-producers. In any serious system, that is exactly when transparency should increase, not disappear.

And the incentives here are not abstract. Critics’ Week itself says these films get a Cannes premiere, professional events, unique visibility, meetings with international buyers and co-producers, and a possible trajectory beyond Cannes through festivals such as Sundance, Toronto and Clermont-Ferrand, with films often acquired by international television channels and platforms. This is not only cultural capital. It is economic capital. It creates future deal flow. It shapes who gets financed, who gets invited into the next lab, who gets introduced to sales agents, and who gets positioned as an “emerging voice” worth betting on.

This is also why FIW keeps returning to the same larger argument. The film industry’s deepest corruption problem is often not a suitcase of cash. It is network conversion: turning public credibility, institutional branding, taxpayer-backed prestige, and festival platforms into private career acceleration for the same recurring circles. The names change a little. The country changes. The language changes. The mechanism remains remarkably familiar.

FIW has documented versions of this pattern before. In Kosovo, we described an ecosystem in which the same people appeared to train, curate, judge and win within a publicly funded circuit. In previous reporting on Dominique Welinski, FIW examined how one person could simultaneously occupy influential roles around talent programs, curation and production. Critics’ Week itself now describes Welinski as the creator and curator of Next Step Studio, while FIW has previously raised questions about how such overlapping positions can distort fair access. This Indonesia edition does not appear from nowhere. It fits a pattern FIW has already been tracking across territories and institutions.

The concentration of influence around repeating names looks even more troubling when viewed in a broader gatekeeping context. Yulia Evina Bhara was a member of the Critics’ Week jury in 2025, and later served on the Busan International Film Festival competition jury. None of that proves wrongdoing in Next Step Studio Indonesia. But it does show how quickly festival power, producer status, jury visibility and career-launch infrastructure can accumulate around the same figures. The issue FIW keeps highlighting is not that successful people exist. It is that the same people keep appearing across selection, endorsement, production, mentoring and market access, while institutions provide too little public information for outsiders to assess where merit ends and network privilege begins.

The anonymous source who wrote to FIW described “blatant nepotism & favouritism” and a system in which many filmmakers are left “huffing and puffing trying to have a ‘shot’ or just get a tiny bit of ‘support’.” Those are allegations, not proven facts. But the documented overlaps are facts. The public funding is a fact. The Cannes exposure is a fact. The market benefits are a fact. The lack of clearly published selection safeguards in the materials FIW reviewed is also a fact. Put together, they are more than enough to justify public scrutiny.

So the answer from Critics’ Week should be simple.

Was there an open call?

If there was no open call, how were candidates identified?

Who made the final selections?

What recusal rules applied?

Were recent collaborators of the co-producers considered, and if so, under what safeguards?

What exactly were the public institutions funding: a transparent talent platform, or a relationship-driven pipeline whose key decisions remain largely invisible?

Until those questions are answered, Next Step Studio Indonesia looks less like a discovery platform than a familiar industry machine: publicly celebrated, softly defended, privately networked, and structured in a way that once again risks converting institutional legitimacy into insider advantage.

The film industry loves the word discovery.

Too often, what it actually means is internal promotion inside a closed loop.

Same logic. Same incentives. Same names.

New country. Same machine.

The post “I Am Scared for My Life and My Career”: Cannes Critics’ Week’s Next Step Studio Indonesia and the Same Closed Loop FIW Has Been Warning About first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

Popular YouTube channel Film Threat recently covered our article “Sundance’s Little Dirty Secret: How NYU’s Elite Grip is Crushing Indie Dreams” and added their analysis to the growing body of evidence that Sundance, while still claiming to champion “independent cinema” and underprivileged voices, is anything but. The Sundance Film Festival has long billed itself as the premier stage for fresh, diverse storytelling. But as our investigation revealed, that image may be a “glaring farce” – Sundance’s lineups are overwhelmingly dominated by alumni of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, one of the priciest and most elite film programs in the country. Film Threat’s commentary emphatically reinforced this point, with hosts Chris Gore and Alan Ng slamming Sundance for perpetuating an insider pipeline that “filters out” true indie voices. The picture that emerges is damning: Sundance appears less a democratic showcase of unknown talent and more an exclusive club reunion for those with the right connections and credentials.

An Elite Pipeline Exposed

Our original report laid out stunning statistics. In 2025, 143 NYU Tisch-affiliated filmmakers swarmed 39% of all Sundance projects – including half of the films in the U.S. Dramatic and Documentary Competition. By contrast, graduates of other top film schools like UCLA and USC were attached to far fewer entries. This lopsided representation is “not organic success, it’s systemic favoritism” as we wrote. Sundance’s vaunted labs and development programs have been similarly skewed. Five out of the 2025 Sundance Screenwriters Lab participants came from NYU, reinforcing what critics call a “networking on steroids” effect that turns Sundance into “an extension of NYU’s campus”. Such concentration of power in one school’s hands is unprecedented given the 1,300+ film programs across the United States. It’s “downright laughable,” we noted, that a single Manhattan-based institution could monopolize opportunities meant for a nation’s worth of diverse creators.

Even more troubling are allegations about how Sundance selects its films. The festival reportedly receives 14,000–16,000 submissions each year (with entry fees up to $125 per film), yet fewer than 1% are accepted. Insiders whisper that not every submission even gets a complete viewing – many entries may be unwatched or only partially viewed, while films with backdoor recommendations from elite circles get fast-tracked. As our article quipped, believing every film is fairly considered is “as naive as believing a lunar real estate scheme”. The result is an illusion of meritocracy: Sundance touts surface-level diversity stats (over 40% women directors, many filmmakers of color), but beneath that lies a “skin-deep” diversity. The same coastal, well-heeled enclave is producing those “diverse” voices, meaning indie has become “institutionally approved” rather than truly independent.

Film Threat’s hosts seized on these findings, expressing little surprise but plenty of frustration. “Does this surprise anybody?” Chris Gore asked rhetorically, noting that Sundance has always favored insiders to some extent – but it’s gotten far worse. “You always had to have an ‘in’, but there was a chance a random movie could make it through the process. [Now] it’s gotten more exclusionary,” Gore explained. The festival pumps out press releases about inclusion, yet “while they tout terms like diversity, there’s truly no content diversity, there’s no diversity of points of view,” he said pointedly. In Gore’s view, Sundance’s supposed independent selection is largely a sham – a curated showcase of the well-connected. He and his co-host agreed this insider game isn’t just unfair, it’s also hurting the art: “They’re being so exclusionary, only letting in people from NYU or people they know or based on the identity of the person who made the movie. And what ends up [happening] is the movies are not very good,” Gore observed bluntly. Sundance champions identity and pedigree over originality, and accordingly, “the movies at Sundance are underwhelming… They’re just not good movies because of favoritism”.

Quality Control: “Underwhelming” Films and Frustrated Filmmakers

One of the most striking critiques from the Film Threat discussion was how mediocre the Sundance slate has become in recent years, in the eyes of seasoned reviewers. “Every year you comment [that] I was whelmed,” Gore teased Alan Ng, referring to the forgettable quality of Sundance selections. Alan concurred: he shared that during the last festival, “I didn’t review a single film from Sundance ’cause… I was barely whelmed by anything I saw”. Comedies, he noted, had devolved into trivial silly fare, and nothing left a strong impression. When the supposedly best indie festival in the world consistently delivers lukewarm lineups, it raises serious questions about how those films got there in the first place. Gore and Ng’s answer? Favoritism and a closed feedback loop of elite tastes picking films that cater to the same. As Gore put it, the lack of genuine diversity of perspective means “the festival circuit is [no longer] where the best movies bubble to the surface. It’s just not.” In other words, truly innovative independent cinema isn’t getting a fair shot at Sundance – and perhaps is finding alternate paths outside the traditional festival gatekeepers.

The frustration among filmmakers is palpable. If Sundance is essentially pre-selecting films from its pet sources, what hope does a truly independent outsider have? Many in the film community have suspected this for years, and our exposé along with Film Threat’s coverage seems to validate those suspicions. On Reddit, one filmmaker reacted to the NYU revelation by writing: “The hard lesson was learning that the major festivals are 90% pre-programmed. Long gone are the days of movies like Napoleon Dynamite getting plucked from the middle of nowhere and starting a billion dollar career.” In other words, the era when an unknown could submit a brilliant film and launch a dream career at Sundance is effectively over. Another commenter didn’t mince words about the statistical improbability of Sundance’s NYU fixation: “Yeah, it’s beyond fishy. It’s statistically impossible. And it’s been an open secret for a long time. Every time I ask older filmmakers about Sundance, they all say not to bother, because you have to know somebody to get serious consideration.” This sentiment – that without connections “you have to know somebody” on the inside – reflects a growing cynicism among creators. Many now view Sundance as a pay-to-play illusion, where who you know (or where you studied) matters far more than raw talent.

Indeed, the Film Threat hosts raised the same concern. Alan Ng mused that Sundance’s submission process might even warrant legal scrutiny. “I smell… a class action lawsuit,” he said only half-jokingly. Filmmakers are paying hefty entry fees (often $80–$125 per under the assumption of a fighting chance. If, as alleged, thousands of those submissions aren’t truly given full consideration, that could be a serious breach of trust. “It feels like… you’re giving them $80 and your movie is not being seen,” Ng remarked in disbelief. With 16,000 hopefuls submitting each year, the idea that only NYU’s circle consistently produces all the “worthy” films is, frankly, absurd. “Is it possible that only [one] school is making the elite of the elite movies out of these 16,000?” Ng asked pointedly, before answering his own question: obviously not. Something is clearly wrong when Sundance’s selection shenanigans (as we dubbed them) allow such a skewed outcome.

Sundance’s Shrinking Relevance?

A powerful takeaway from Film Threat’s analysis is that Sundance may be undermining its own relevance through these practices. Gore argued that the festival circuit in general “is not as important as it used to be” for discovering great films. Part of the reason is technological and cultural shifts – filmmakers can self-distribute online or find audiences through smaller regional festivals. But another reason is self-inflicted: by narrowing the pipeline and uplifting what Gore called “bad indie movies because of favoritism and identity”, Sundance is “doing damage to their brand”. The hosts noted that high-profile festivals like Sundance, Toronto, Cannes, and SXSW still draw attention, but if they keep picking lackluster films from the same incestuous circle, filmmakers and cinephiles will simply look elsewhere. “The good news is you don’t need festivals,” Gore emphasized. Great films can and will find their way to audiences without passing through Park City’s elitist filter. In fact, many truly independent creators are already bypassing Sundance, opting for direct digital releases or alternative festivals rather than subjecting themselves to a rigged game.

The core issue, as summarized by our original piece and echoed by Film Threat, is one of credibility. Can Sundance continue to pretend it’s a champion of all indie voices when insiders see it as “a rigged game… propping up a privileged few”? The chorus of critics is growing louder. What was once whispered as an “open secret” is now shouted from YouTube shows and Reddit threads. Even industry veterans like Gore (who literally wrote the book on film festivals) concede that sending your film to Sundance blindly is naive. Unless Sundance undergoes a radical shake-up – “dismantle its elite dependencies… publish full selection stats… scout beyond NYC networks,” as our article implored– it risks losing the very thing that made it iconic: the independent spirit. For now, Sundance’s claim of being a meritocratic launchpad for all creatives rings hollow. In the words of one Reddit user, aimed at any hopeful without an NYU degree: “Good luck.”

Sources

1. Film Industry Watch – “Sundance’s Little Dirty Secret: How NYU’s Elite Grip is Crushing Indie Dreams” (July 25, 2025). Film Industry Watch’s investigative article that first exposed the disproportionate presence of NYU Tisch alumni in the 2025 Sundance lineup and alleged systemic favoritism in the festival’s selection process.
2. Film Threat (YouTube) – “All Eyes on Elites – Sundance’s Dirty Secret” (Chris Gore & Alan Ng discussion). Transcript of Film Threat’s video segment reacting to the Film Industry Watch report, featuring Chris Gore’s and Alan Ng’s commentary on Sundance’s elitism, lack of diversity of viewpoints, and declining film quality due to favoritism.
3. Reddit – r/Filmmakers discussion, “Sundance’s Dirty Secret: How NYU’s Elite Grip is Crushing Indie Dreams.” Online forum thread where filmmakers discuss and react to the article’s claims. Notably, users highlight that major festivals are “90% pre-programmed” and that the era of unknown indies getting discovered (e.g., Napoleon Dynamite*) is “long gone,” reinforcing the notion of festival favoritism.
4. Reddit – r/FilmFestivals discussion, “Sundance’s Dirty Secret: How NYU’s Elite Grip is Crushing Indie Dreams.” Another community thread focused on film festivals, in which commenters call the Sundance situation “beyond fishy” and an “open secret.” One commenter notes that older filmmakers advise “you have to know somebody” at Sundance to have a real shot, underlining the prevalence of insider culture.

The post Sundance’s Hollow Indie Dream: What Film Threat and Filmmakers Already Know first appeared on Film Industry Watch.