EXCLUSIVE: Academy Award nominees Geeta Gandbhir, Sam Pollard, and Alisa Payne are joining the Oscar-contending short documentary Water Cooler as executive producers.

Emma V.F. directed the film, which she shot in the corridors of immigration court at Federal Plaza in New York City. Filming openly, V.F. captured scenes of jarring contrast: ICE agents engaged in mundane “water cooler” talk and then those same agents seizing migrants in the hallways who were following proper procedures to seek legal status in the U.S.

At one moment, the agents – most of them masked – would be talking amongst themselves about shopping for Black Friday deals, for instance, or the latest taser models. The next moment, they were forcibly detaining someone who had showed up to immigration court little expecting to be grabbed before they walked into court.

“The observational documentary — which [V.F.] filmed from November 2025 through January 2026 — juxtaposes agents’ casual conversations with tense scenes of the agents arresting immigrants who attended required court hearings to seek legal status,” notes a description. Water Cooler won Best Documentary Short at Palm Springs International ShortFest 2026, qualifying the film for Oscar consideration.

“Water Cooler is an urgent documentary short that sends a powerful message about a defining issue of our time,” said Pollard (MLK/FBI, Tutu). “America is at a tipping point with ICE and their outrageous incursions into our cities, which is why films like this are so important.”

Gandbhir (The Perfect Neighbor, The Devil Is Busy), observed, “Emma V.F.’s film Water Cooler honors the direct cinema style pioneered by Bob Drew and D. A. Pennebaker while turning her lens on masked federal agents. Even in a short runtime, it does what the films of those pioneers did — immerses you in a world that is crucial to see for yourself.”

Water Cooler screens on Saturday at the Hamptons International Film Festival in New York, on Sunday, October 18 at the Woodstock Film Festival in New York, and on October 24 at AFI Fest in Los Angeles. Next month, it’s programmed at the St. Louis International Film Festival. In addition to Palm Springs International ShortFest, the documentary has screened at DC/DOX in the nation’s capital.

The documentary is a production of Spoonbill Stories and Message Pictures, the latter a company founded by Gandbhir, Pollard, and Payne (Payne earned an Oscar nomination earlier this year for producing The Perfect Neighbor). Water Cooler is directed, produced, filmed and edited by Emma V.F. Along with Gandbhir, Pollard, and Payne, Blair Foster (Marty, Life is Short; Taxi to the Darkside) serves as an executive producer. Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (Seeds, Union, Power) composed the original score.

V.F. directed the 2023 documentary feature Queen of New York. Her producing credits include In the Same Breath (HBO); Silver Dollar Road (Amazon Studios); Take Your Pills: Xanax (Netflix) and Once Upon a Time in Uganda.

“As the granddaughter of Italian immigrants and Jewish New Yorkers who would be outraged to see masked federal agents disappearing law-abiding people down stairwells in their city, I knew this was a film I needed to make,” Emma V.F. said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to partner with Message Pictures to share the film more widely in hopes that it inspires collective action opposing ICE.”

Watch a teaser-trailer for Water Cooler here:

EXCLUSIVE: Focus Features and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster have snapped up Play House, a micro-budget horror film from Nicolas Curcio, in a competitive situation, sources tell Deadline.

We’re told this was a seven-figure deal for worldwide rights, excluding Latin America and India. This is a major coup for Curcio’s debut feature, a film made for just $100,000 — roughly 13% of the reported budget of Curry Barker’s low-budget Focus phenomenon Obsession.

Curcio set the project in motion last September after winning the inaugural Fantastic Pitches contest, a micro-budget genre initiative spearheaded by Alamo Drafthouse’s Fantastic Fest and indie studio Chroma, thereby securing funding and distribution. He returned to Fantastic Fest to premiere the film last month.

Play House will release in theaters in 2027, with Universal Pictures International handling international distribution.

Written by Curcio and wife/creative partner Kirby Gladstein, the film follows Elliott (Will Harrison), who while renovating a dilapidated house to win back his ex, discovers VHS tapes of an unaired children’s TV show which begins to seep into his life, threatening his last chance at reconciliation.

Pic’s cast also includes Jessica Sula, Jordan Gonzalez, and James Urbaniak. Curcio and Gladstein produced for Skinny Ghost, alongside Ben Gojer, Jack Forbes, and Derek Tramont. Exec producers include Ahbra Perry via Chroma, Daniel Levin via Narrative, Adam Hendricks and Greg Gilreath of Divide/Conquer, and Jason Blum of Blumhouse Atomic-Monster. NPerry repped the film for sales via Narrative Distribution.

While Universal art-house label Focus Features has not historically been known as a major horror distributor, outside of recent work with Robert Eggers on titles like Nosferatu and the upcoming Werwulf, they’re now aggressively expanding into the space as supporters of emerging filmmakers, after seeing Obsession break out as their highest-grossing film ever at over $522M worldwide. Divide/Conquer’s Hendricks and Gilreath — EPs on Play House — previously brought that film to Blum, who set it up at Focus, along with his follow-up Anything but Ghosts, dated for May 7, 2027.

You can expect much more to come from the collaboration between Focus Features and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster. Most recently, they announced their partnership on director Josh Giuliano’s Occupant following the buzzy TIFF debut of his first horror film, River.

Curcio is a rising filmmaker who recently set up his high-concept thriller spec Sweet Spot, penned with Gladstein, at Paramount Primal, as we first reported. A writer on Sony Pictures Animation’s hit GOAT, he has developed projects for multiple studios, including a live-action Magic School Bus for Universal and an adaptation of Planet of the Nerds for Paramount. His script Barron made the Black List in 2019.

Curcio is also known for running a popular screenwriting TikTok account with nearly 200K followers and over 10M likes, and has partnered with studios like Neon, A24 and Paramount to promote films. He is repped by 3 Arts, UTA, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.