These up-and-coming producers champion diverse talents and storytellers, and will be recognized at the Bentonville Film Festival. The 12th edition of the festival runs June 15-21 in Bentonville, Ark. with founding partner Walmart, presenting partner Coca-Cola and a partnership with Variety’s Producers to Watch. While it seems like the current conversation around theatrical films is doom and gloom, these producers feel that if you can get a unique or original story on the big screen, audiences will show up. “We’re currently in a landscape that is so saturated with stories and hate to say it, content — so I feel like we’re all experiencing that industry shift. The swings feel bigger and a bit more volatile. But ultimately, I think in art and even in life, originality is all you have. I have to have faith that good storytelling and talent rises to the top,” says Taylor Shung, who is behind “Materialists” and “Late Fame.”
Adds Emily Korteweg (“Splitsville”): “When it comes to IP, we look for one of two things: either material with enough gravitas to carry genuine prestige potential, or a fresh concept — a clean, compelling idea you can articulate in a couple of lines. The question we ask is: What is the concept that is genuinely new, exciting, and strong enough to build around? “The films that are breaking through right now are the ones that demand something from the audience — that make them active rather than passive. That is not just one tone. We want to cut through, and above all, entertain.”
Beirne-Golden produced “Josephine,” Beth de Araújo’s coming-of-age drama that won over the crowd at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, winning both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award in U.S. dramatic competition. Sumerian Pictures picked it up for domestic distribution in a competitive seven-figure deal. Led by breakout newcomer Mason Reeves, 8, opposite Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan as her parents, the film follows a girl coping with a violent crime she witnesses in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.“Underrepresented voices are the ones I go to first,” Beirne-Golden says. “But there’s also just a spark to something you know when you read it, where you go, I have to help this get out into the world.”He adds: “Almost any film made by queer people, in a weird way, becomes a queer movie to me. Just by being present in your own experience, you’re infusing that into the film, no matter what you’re doing on the crew. I don’t think about it intellectually, but it informs every choice I make.”View on the marketplace: “There’s an extinction-event kind of feeling about the industry right now. But the more people feel like the old ways aren’t working, the more opportunity there is to try something new. It’s cyclical. When I started, I was getting hired to rewrite studio movies, and that business has basically vanished, and that was only 2012. A lot of things haven’t been working, but that means there’s a chance to do it in a way that does.”What’s next? “The tough thing about making something that really worked, that you really loved, is that now I want to find something else that feels like this. And that’s hard to do.” He is also developing projects for television.
“Take Me Home” bowed at Sundance, where Charan won the Amazon MGM Fiction Producer’s Award. The film took home the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award and Willa picked it up for theatrical distribution. Charan’s debut feature as a producer, 2022 Pakistani film “Joyland,” was an international breakout that explored gender roles and queer spaces in the country. Her outlook is global: Born in India, based in L.A., she grew up in Northern California and started her career at Fremantle in Singapore.What kind of material do you look for? “Broadly speaking, I look for two things. One is a very, very strong emotional core, and the second is just a reminder of shared humanity. I think audiences need that more than ever. Yes, the material has to be engaging. We need to have a filmmaker with a really clear voice that is ringing out in a very specific perspective.”View on the marketplace: “I think passion helps because it helps you build discipline. The reality of the marketplace is that it’s very daunting and challenging, so I think, in addition to the passion, what are the realistic budget levels for the stories that we’re trying to tell? If we continue to make films at this budget level, and in this way, are we building sustainable careers for ourselves? What we’re doing is building a pipeline of projects that will, in this moment, allow us to take creative risks while building towards bigger projects that would maybe help us survive long term.”What’s next? Charan has several films in the pipeline, including one from “Joyland” director Siam Sadiq. All Caps is also expanding its craft-driven approach to the vertical space.
With a resume that includes “Club Kid,” “Lurker,” “In the Hand of Dante” and “Come Home,” Core’s acumen is apparent. The Mubi-distributed “Lurker” enjoyed critical acclaim, while “Club Kid” debuted in Un Certain Regard at Cannes and goosed the rather subdued festival with a headline-grabbing $17 million distribution deal with A24. Core says they hadn’t tested the movie before its Cannes premiere, so the enthusiastic response was “kind of what you hope for as a producer.” What kind of material do you look for? “It’s the most cliched answer — it’s script first, but it’s also the people behind those things.”He says “Lurker,” which had been on the Blacklist, was the best thing he’d read that wasn’t made. Core tapped into the script and its writer, Alex Russell, who was “someone who was ready to be a partner in that sense and had a real point of view. … I think you can usually tell right away how ready someone is to make a movie.”Industry POV: “I wouldn’t say ‘Club Kid’ was inherently something that people knew audiences would react to. There was a lot of risk in that movie, but it was something that was undeniably great and original, and felt like exactly what I wanted to sink my teeth into as a producer. The obstacles of making that movie are all things that are really pleasurable as filmmaking exercises. I think for both myself and the filmmakers, we’re trying to do things that we want to see on screen.”Next up: Core can’t divulge many details but “it’s [for] a new division of Paramount, which is really exciting, and the people who are running it are really smart and great and creative.”
Flint got her start assisting Working Title Films co-chairman Eric Fellner on films such as “Bridget Jones’s Baby” and “Baby Driver” before gaining experience on-set as a director’s assistant. “Part of producing is helping to bring a director’s vision to life, so working closely with directors in this way was a formative next step,” says Flint. She worked closely with producers like Barbara Broccoli on “No Time to Die” and Gary Goetzman on “Masters of the Air.” From there, Working Title co-chair Tim Bevan approached Flint about setting a first-look producing deal at the company; the highly anticipated “Sense and Sensibility,” set for an Oct. 16 release, is Flint’s first feature in this set up. State of the industry: “I’ve made a conscious effort not to follow what can be fickle and fast-changing trends in the industry and instead have focused on telling stories that I personally find compelling. When I first set about pursuing an adaptation of ‘Sense and Sensibility,’ everyone was saying period won’t sell — yet now we are coming around to the release of the film [and] there is a real demand for classic adaptions, specifically with younger audiences who are discovering these stories for the first time.” Which movie do you wish you produced? “‘Phantom Thread’ — it’s a perfect example of character-led genre, a film that is driven by its complex central character and an outstanding performance within a psychological thriller. I want to restart the film as soon as it finishes.” Influences: Fellow producers Broccoli and Jo Wallett. “[Barbara’s] wealth of knowledge and experience is second to none. She completely commands a room when she enters it,” says Flint. “Working with Jo is like being at the best film school.”
Intili has held positions at MK2 Films, Kindred Spirit, Animal Kingdom and FilmNation Entertainment, where they began their career as an assistant. Stints as an executive producer gave Intili the confidence to produce full-time. Based in New York, Intili produced Ben Mullinkosson’s documentary “The Last Year of Darkness” and Lucio Castro’s romantic drama “After This Death.” They also produced Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow,” and received two Independent Spirit nominations for their work on the film. Intili most recently produced “Maddie’s Secret,” set for a June 19 theatrical release by Magnolia Pictures. “The films I produce are always immersive and character-driven, with some searing social critique in their fabric,” says Intili. “I fall in love with the characters first.” What do you look for when choosing material to produce? “My highest goal is to find a long-term creative collaborator in a writer-director. This means that first and foremost I’m looking for someone whose vision of the future I share and want to support.” What is the state of the industry? “The theatrical film industry has more or less collapsed. The vitality of career producing is under threat as a result … At the same time, we’re seeing a golden era of micro-budget cinema emerge and I still have endless faith that audiences want to seek out ambitious, challenging film and discover something new when they go to the movies.”Influences: David Lynch, Gregg Araki, Mike Leigh, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Glazer and John Waters. What’s next? Intili has recently wrapped production on two unannounced projects: a horror film from Sam Max and a comedy from Conner O’Malley.
Korteweg says “sheer willpower” is what got her into producing. “I’m from the Netherlands, studied finance and literature in London, and then made what most people thought was a slightly irrational decision — turned down a big finance job and bought a ticket to L.A.,” she says. “I met everyone I could in the two weeks I had — to this day I don’t entirely know why those people were generous enough to sit down with me. That generosity is something I think about often and try to pay forward, especially knowing how connection-dependent this industry is.” She joined up with Michael Covino and Kyle Marvin, who had success with “The Climb,” as they wanted to start a new venture with Topic Studio. “That’s how Watch This Ready was born.” State of the industry: “I am optimistic and realistic. Optimistic because of both recent data and a humanist belief: human beings crave connection, expansion, beauty. Give them something that moves them — to tears or laughter in a way they can’t quite explain — and they will return to it. So, as technology and social media foster solitude and comparison, audiences will reject the extremes of it. The data bears this out: box office is climbing back, and Gen Z — whom we feared only wanted to look at their phones — are now driving the return to cinemas. My optimism goes hand in hand with realism. None of the above means that the way things are created or consumed stays fixed.”What’s next: “The Last Fix,” a Netflix comedy directed by Michael Angelo Covino; a Christmas movie with Neon; “Jeannie Sui Wonders’ stunning first feature, as well as an exciting project with PippaBianco.”
Based in Toronto, Miller’s Zapruder Films is behind such pics as “BlackBerry”(2023), picked up by IFC Films, “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” (2026), distribbed by Neon, and “Mile End Kicks” (2026), distributed by Sumerian Pictures. On deck is “Tony,” for A24, which follows a young Anthony Bourdain, starring Dominic Sessa as the late chef, and Antonio Banderas. He was also exec producer on Viceland’s cult series “Nirvanna the Band the Show.”What do you look for in choosing material to produce? “There’s always excitement at the beginning of a new project or when there is a new idea. But the key thing is that excitement needs to be able to sustain for years because movies by their very nature take so long to make. For this reason, most projects just fade away over time and never get out of early development. So in some ways, the projects choose us, simply by sticking around or continuing to gnaw at us creatively. That said, most of our movies are about the dynamics of male friendships-working relationships.”Industry POV: “We always think of audience first and believe that we must entertain, respect and challenge them. Movies are too hard to make and take too much time and money for them not to find an audience. If you build it, they will come.”Influences: “I’m interested in recurring producer-director relationships. James Schamus and the work he did in the 1990s-2000s with Ang Lee is of particular interest to me. ‘The Ice Storm’ was a big movie for me and one I return to frequently. Being the writer of those films along with Lee gives him a unique perspective as a creative producer.”
O’Connor produced “Project Hail Mary,” the Phil Lord and Christopher Miller sci-fi epic starring Ryan Gosling. The pic opened in March and has grossed more than $600 million worldwide for Amazon MGM Studios. It is the second film to carry her PGA producing mark, after 2024’s “Challengers.”She came up across the modern Spider-Man universe and beyond, with co-producing credits on “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “The Post” and executive producer credits on “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” “Little Women” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” A former studio executive who started as a freelance script reader, her career accelerated under mentor Amy Pascal — she followed her to Sony and now produces alongside her at Pascal Pictures.What draws her to a project? “It feels amazing to be part of something that touches people, that entertains them but also makes them laugh and makes them cry. The fact that [“Project Hail Mary”] has a really optimistic take on people, and what humans and even some non-humans can do when they work together, means a lot to me. I think that’s part of the reason it moved people so deeply. We may find ourselves divided, but we don’t want to be.”View on the marketplace: “We as an industry have to keep making these [types of films]. When everything came on streaming, we as theatrical filmmakers didn’t define ourselves. We were chasing what is streaming versus what is theatrical. But if we can deliver years like this one with consistency, then theatrical defines itself.”What’s next? She has a full slate, including the next chapter of the franchise in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” a “Murder, She Wrote” movie feature with Jamie Lee Curtis, and an untitled Fred Astaire film starring Tom Holland and directed by Paul King that is planned to start shooting in 2027.
Roush saw Adam Meeks’ “Union County,” which deals with addiction in a small, worn-out Ohio community, bow at Sundance to critical acclaim and land a distribution deal with Oscilloscope. Foxglove’s psychological thriller “Act One,” from Sophia Takal, made waves at Tribeca. Other productions include Theda Hammel’s “Stress Positions” — also a Sundance premiere and picked up by Neon — and the upcoming “System of Colors,” from Stephen Cone. What works for her: Besides being moved by a screenplay, “the next question becomes, ‘Could anyone else make this film?’ And I think for early-career filmmakers, the answer to that question has to be no. For Adam and ‘Union County,’ he’s from that part of Ohio. He had made significant inroads into that community. He had made a short with the community. The community participation is such a huge part of that film, and so the answer was no one else could make this film. It’s really sort of become a litmus test for me on first-time filmmakers and something I look for is that they’re doing something that essentially no one else could do.” Inspiration: ”I’m definitely inspired by American filmmakers. I think it’s important to me to continue the tradition of great American independent cinema.” She’s also inspired by women producers like Christine Vachon, noting, “There are not so many women to have done it, and so I’m always sort of like looking to the ones who have… I want to be a part of that next generation of American independents.”
Shung recently wrapped producing “Peaked” directed by Molly Gordon for A24, while 2025’s “Late Fame,” directed by Kent Jones and starring Willem Dafoe and Greta Lee, earned critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival, where it premiered. Magnolia picked up distribution. She produced Mubi’s “My First Film,” directed by Zia Anger, and exec produced Celine Song’s “Past Lives” and “The Materialists.”She says she got into producing after film school because “I really loved being on set and the rush of problem-solving on the fly.” And a description of what a line producer does from “Shooting to Kill,” by OG indie producer Christine Vachon, further cemented Shung’s intuition that she was in the right profession.Learning curve: “My first job was on an independent film that Scott Macaulay was producing. There was so much I didn’t know and I was both nervous and eager to jump into the deep end. I remember a day on set where something didn’t show up and I started to panic. Scott ever so calmly began to describe “one day on ‘Gummo’” and that really put things in perspective. He modeled a tone that I’ve since deeply embodied: it’s always solvable and sometimes the product is better than what was planned.” What you look for in choosing material to produce? “I’m looking for a story that I connect with, perhaps because it captures a familiar feeling or offers an observation of the world we live in. But most importantly, the story must be accompanied by a filmmaker with a strong perspective and a unique eye for bringing together talent. A plus if they have a good sense of humor. At the end of the day, the project needs to feel authentic and often I’m drawn to it because of my personalperspective.”