By FIW staff
Based on publicly available information and industry records reviewed by Film Industry Watch.

Editor’s note

This article examines publicly documented professional overlaps between film festival programming, filmmaking, and film distribution. No unlawful conduct is alleged. The article does not claim that any individual or organisation acted improperly, influenced a selection, or breached any specific rule.

Instead, it analyses the structural incentives and perception risks that can arise when the same individuals and organisations occupy multiple positions within a subjective, publicly supported cultural ecosystem.

The Same Names Keep Coming Up

One of the most common responses Film Industry Watch receives after publishing investigations into Europe’s short-film ecosystem is remarkably consistent:

“You should look at who appears in multiple roles.”

“The same names keep coming up.”

“Once you start mapping the connections, you can’t unsee them.”

Following FIW’s recent article examining how young filmmakers can become financially exposed within Europe’s publicly funded short-film ecosystem, a reader pointed to another example of institutional overlap involving DokuFest and Radiator IP Sales.

The observation was straightforward:

Samir Karahoda, whose films have been represented internationally by Radiator IP Sales, is also listed by DokuFest as part of its short-film programming team.

Publicly available information appears to support this. DokuFest’s official website identifies Karahoda as “Short Dox Programmer” and lists him as part of its programming team. Separately, publicly available distribution materials for Karahoda’s film On the Way identify Radiator IP Sales as the international sales representative.

Viewed in isolation, there is nothing inherently improper about a filmmaker having international representation while also working in festival programming. Cinema is a relationship-driven field, and professionals frequently occupy more than one role.

But the relevance of this example lies in the wider structure around it.

The DokuFest–Radiator Connection

As previously reported by Film Industry Watch, DokuFest has publicly announced a collaboration with Radiator IP Sales regarding international distribution pathways for films within its ecosystem. In public statements, DokuFest has described Radiator as a partner helping address “the challenge of international distribution” for Kosovo-produced films, while also associating the company with its Distribution Award framework.

FIW previously examined these relationships here: https://filmindustrywatch.org/the-price-of-access-in-europes-short-film-system/

This latest overlap therefore does not stand alone.

It sits inside a broader pattern in which Radiator IP Sales appears not only as a distributor operating in the marketplace, but also as a recurring presence near festival partnerships, awards, distribution pathways, and institutional access points.

That distinction matters.

A distributor outside the gate is one thing.

A distributor repeatedly positioned near the gate is another.

The Closed-Loop Economy of Short Film

The short-film world is not a normal market.

Most short films do not generate significant revenue through theatrical release, streaming, or traditional sales. Their value is usually created through visibility: festival selections, awards, industry attention, lab invitations, public funding, and future career opportunities.

In short film, selection itself is a form of currency. There is usually no meaningful box office, no wide commercial release, and often no direct revenue stream. A major festival selection, award, or branded institutional endorsement can become the asset that unlocks the next grant, the next lab, the next producer, the next distributor, the next residency, or the first feature opportunity. In that environment, prestige does not merely decorate a film’s career. It helps finance the next stage of it.

That makes the festival circuit a prestige economy. In such a system, symbolic value and economic value are deeply connected. A film’s artistic reputation can increase its market value. A distributor’s festival success can attract more filmmakers. A filmmaker’s festival record can improve their chances of future funding. A festival’s association with successful filmmakers and distributors can strengthen its own institutional status.

This is where overlapping roles become important.

When a festival programmer is also a filmmaker whose own work is represented by a distributor active around that same festival ecosystem, the concern is not necessarily direct favouritism. The concern is reciprocal professional incentive.

A distributor benefits when its films are selected, awarded, discussed, and institutionally validated. A filmmaker-programmer benefits when their own films are represented by a distributor with strong festival access and industry credibility. A festival benefits when it is associated with successful filmmakers, distributors, awards, and international circulation.

Each party may be acting legitimately. Each relationship may be explainable. But the structure can still become mutually reinforcing.

That is the closed-loop problem.

Not a proven quid pro quo.

Not a claim of corruption.

But a system in which the same organisations and individuals can repeatedly appear on both the cultural and commercial sides of the gate.

From Independent Selection to Reciprocal Advantage

In theory, festivals, distributors, programmers, and filmmakers occupy different roles.

• The festival selects.
• The distributor represents.
• The filmmaker creates.
• The award recognises.
• The public fund supports.
• The lab develops.
• The market circulates.

In practice, these roles can overlap.

• A programmer may also be a filmmaker.
• A filmmaker may be represented by a distributor.
• The same distributor may be linked to a festival partnership or award.
• The festival may be publicly funded.
• The distributor may benefit from festival prestige.
• The filmmaker may benefit from the distributor’s access.
• The institution may benefit from the appearance of international circulation and professional development.

None of this automatically proves misconduct.

But it raises a serious governance question: How does the system prevent professional proximity from becoming structural advantage?

This is particularly important in short film because selection itself often creates value. A distributor does not need a formal guarantee to benefit from proximity to festivals. The value lies in being close to the institutions that decide what becomes visible.

Likewise, a programmer-filmmaker does not need to do anything improper to benefit from close alignment with a distributor that can help their own work travel internationally.

The concern is not necessarily intentional exchange. The concern is incentive alignment.

When the same ecosystem rewards the same proximity again and again, independent selection can begin to look like reciprocal validation.

Mapping the Incentives

The problem can be understood through three overlapping incentives:

The risk is not that any one actor necessarily behaves improperly.

The risk is that the incentives can become aligned in ways the public cannot properly evaluate.

If a distributor represents the work of a programmer, and that distributor is also positioned near the programmer’s festival ecosystem, the public needs to know what safeguards exist. Are there recusal rules? Are award decisions separated from programming relationships? Are commercial ties disclosed internally? Are represented films or distributor-linked films handled differently? Are conflicts recorded?

Without answers, the system asks filmmakers and the public simply to trust it.

That is not enough.

When the Curator Is Also Part of the Market

In a fair ecosystem, the curator is expected to act as a filter for artistic quality. The distributor is expected to act as a market representative. The filmmaker is expected to compete on the strength of the work.

But when these functions overlap repeatedly, the filter can begin to resemble a funnel.

This does not mean that weak films are selected. It does not mean that strong outsiders never break through. It does not mean that represented films are undeserving.

It means that some films may arrive with accumulated advantages before the selection process even begins: representation, institutional familiarity, festival relationships, lab history, market visibility, public funding, and personal trust.

In a subjective field, those advantages matter.

The question is therefore not only whether a film is good. The question is how it became visible, who already knew about it, which networks carried it, and whether outsiders had a comparable pathway.

This is the deeper issue behind the repeated claim that “the same names keep coming up.”

The recurrence may not be accidental. It may be the predictable result of a system where symbolic capital circulates among people and organisations already close to the gate.

Public Funding Raises the Standard

This becomes especially important within Europe’s publicly funded cultural sector.

When taxpayer money, EU cultural grants, national cinema funds, and publicly supported talent initiatives are involved, the expectation is not merely that misconduct be avoided. The expectation is that institutions maintain transparency, separation of roles, fairness, and public confidence.

Public funding gives cultural systems legitimacy. It tells filmmakers that the field is open. It tells the public that access is being administered in the name of culture, diversity, discovery, and merit.

But when the same networks repeatedly surface around both cultural prestige and economic opportunity, difficult questions naturally arise about how open the system truly is.

This also has consequences for diversity and access. Publicly funded cultural systems often justify themselves through commitments to emerging voices, regional representation, underrepresented filmmakers, and open access. But if informal proximity becomes one of the main routes to visibility, those least likely to possess inherited networks, festival literacy, elite-school access, or industry mentors may be disadvantaged before their work is even evaluated.

A system can promote diversity rhetorically while still reproducing insider advantage structurally.

If publicly supported festivals, awards, labs, and distribution pathways repeatedly strengthen the same professional circuits, then public money may end up reinforcing private proximity.

That does not mean public money was misused. It does mean public funders should ask sharper governance questions.

The Questions DokuFest and Radiator Should Answer

This article does not allege wrongdoing by DokuFest, Radiator IP Sales, Samir Karahoda, or any other individual or organisation.

But the publicly visible overlap raises reasonable questions of public interest:

1. Does DokuFest have a written conflict-of-interest policy for programmers whose own films are represented by companies connected to the festival ecosystem?
2. Are programmers required to declare sales, distribution, representation, or consultancy relationships?
3. If a distributor represents the personal work of a festival programmer, is that distributor still eligible for festival-linked awards, partnerships, or privileged access within the same institutional environment?
4. Are programming, award, and distribution-partnership decisions separated internally?
5. Are recusals recorded when programmers have professional relationships with distributors, producers, sales agents, or filmmakers under consideration?
6. Are filmmakers submitting through open calls informed how many selected films come through open submissions versus distributor relationships, invitations, labs, scouting, or institutional partnerships?
7. If public funding supports any part of this ecosystem, are funders provided with conflict-of-interest declarations or network-concentration data?

These are not accusations.

They are governance questions.

And they are precisely the kind of questions publicly supported cultural institutions should be able to answer.

Informal Power Is Still Power

People outside the industry often imagine corruption as a direct transaction: money changing hands, explicit promises, formal exclusion.

But cultural industries often operate through softer mechanisms.

• A recommendation here.
• A familiar name there.
• A distributor attached to an award.
• A programmer connected to a sales company.
• A consultant sitting inside a talent pipeline.
• A quiet exclusion elsewhere.
• The same people recurring across festivals, labs, panels, funding environments, and industry programmes.

No single element necessarily proves misconduct.

But over time, the accumulation can produce a system in which insiders are more visible, more familiar, and more trusted, while outsiders are left trying to understand rules that are never formally written down.

For early-career filmmakers, especially those without institutional connections, money, or access to the right social networks, this can create a structurally uneven environment. The work itself may still matter, but proximity begins to matter too.

That is precisely the problem.

A Visible Network Structure

At a certain point, the overlaps stop appearing isolated.

They begin to reveal a recurring institutional structure.

A distributor connected to a festival award.
A filmmaker represented by that distributor also working inside festival programming.
A publicly funded ecosystem designed to support emerging talent.
The same names appearing across labs, panels, juries, consulting roles, and distribution pathways.

This does not prove wrongdoing.

But it does raise legitimate public-interest questions about transparency, independence, and access.

And because much of this ecosystem is publicly funded, those questions should not be dismissed as gossip, resentment, or misunderstanding. They are governance questions.

• Who has access?
• Who benefits from proximity?
• Who gets seen?
• Who pays to enter from the outside?
• Who is already inside the room?

That structure, rather than any single individual, is what Film Industry Watch continues to document.

Conclusion: The System Does Not Need a Smoking Gun to Need Reform

The DokuFest–Radiator example is not important because it proves misconduct. It does not.

It is important because it illustrates how Europe’s short-film ecosystem can produce overlapping roles, reciprocal incentives, and recurring proximity between festivals, distributors, filmmakers, programmers, awards, and publicly supported development pathways.

The question is not whether one filmmaker can also be a programmer. Many can, and many do.

The question is whether festivals and funders have built systems strong enough to manage the conflicts, incentives, and perceptions created by those overlapping roles.

In a subjective cultural field, transparency is not a bureaucratic luxury. It is the condition of trust.

Until festivals publish clear conflict-of-interest policies, recusal procedures, distributor-partnership rules, award-separation safeguards, and submission-pathway data, the central concern will remain:

Not that the system is necessarily corrupt.

But that it is too opaque to prove that it is fair.

Call for information

Film Industry Watch is continuing to examine the relationship between festival programming, distribution, sales, festival strategy, awards, submission fees, lab pipelines, screener practices, and conflict-of-interest safeguards.

Filmmakers, producers, programmers, screeners, festival workers, distributors, and industry professionals are invited to share documented experiences, including:

– films represented by companies linked to festival programmers;
– submission-fee disparities or fee-waiver practices;
– examples of films reaching senior programmers through non-open-call pathways;
– lab-to-festival pipelines involving the same individuals or institutions;
– undisclosed professional relationships between programmers, distributors, producers, mentors, or sales agents;
– internal festival conflict-of-interest policies;
– screener, preselector, intern, or volunteer viewing practices;
– correspondence, screenshots, catalogues, contracts, public bios, fee receipts, waiver evidence, or other verifiable material.

FIW welcomes both named and confidential submissions. Anonymous claims should be supported by documents wherever possible. FIW will not publish unsupported allegations as fact and will seek comment where appropriate.

Right of reply

The individuals, festivals, and organisations mentioned in this article, including Samir Karahoda, DokuFest, and Radiator IP Sales, are invited to respond. Any substantive response providing clarity on how these overlaps are managed will be published or reflected where appropriate.

Sources

DokuFest programming team:
https://dokufest.com/en/info/people

Distribution materials identifying Radiator IP Sales:
https://www.seminci.com/en/peliculas/on-the-way/

Related FIW investigation:
https://filmindustrywatch.org/the-price-of-access-in-europes-short-film-system/

The post The Closed-Loop Economy of Short Film: DokuFest, Radiator IP Sales, and the Soft Power of Europe’s Festival Networks first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

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 Talking About first appeared on Film Industry Watch.