For Small Indies, Dweck Aims to Be Agent of Change

Hannah Dweck and Ted Schaefer discuss how they vet filmmakers, their producing approach, and the opportunities they see in distribution.

In 2016, Hannah Dweck was making her first short film, and she needed a producer. A friend working at Huffington Post recommended Ted Schaefer, who was freelance directing and producing comedy videos for the site at the time. The two immediately hit it off, and after making the short, they continued collaborating. By 2018, Schaefer was preparing to make his first feature, Giving Birth to a Butterfly, and Dweck was getting ready to make her first feature documentary, Guest House, and they decided it would be smart to create a formal entity for their projects. And that’s when they created Dweck Productions.

Initially, the production company was just going to be for their own projects. But then Jane Schoenbrun, whom Schaefer had been friends with for a while, came to them with a project called We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. “We read the script and we were like, ‘This is amazing,’” Dweck recalls. So they joined as executive producers. The film premiered at Sundance in 2021, and it quickly attracted glowing reviews and a cult enthusiasm. The experience was rewarding for Dweck and Schaefer, and it opened doors, such that now producing and executive producing other filmmakers’ work is a big part of what they do. The company has an impressive roster of small independent films under its belt, including Dustin Guy Deffa’s The Adults, H.P. Mendoza’s The Secret Art of Human Flight, Tyler Taorima’s Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, and, most recently, Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s Tendaberry (available to stream on Mubi) and Joel Potrykus’s Vulcanizadora (now in select theaters). “As we’ve grown, the mantra has always been, ‘We want to help movies we like get made in any way we can.’” Schaefer says. “And the only way we decide if we'll do a movie is if both of us like the movie. Not external factors.”

When I spoke to Dweck and Schaefer, Vulcanizadora was beginning a limited theatrical run and they were prepping for Schaefer’s next feature, which was a week from production. We discussed how they vet filmmakers, their producing approach, and the opportunities they see in distribution.

Still from We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. s

Going back to World's Fair, can you tell me what your role looked like on that film?

Hannah Dweck: Primarily, we were the majority financier for the film. And because it was also our first time playing that role, we were pretty hands off. We sent some script notes at the time. We were allowed to see cuts of the edit and give notes that way. They involved us in the sale. We were collaborative throughout the process, but we had a more hands off approach than we would now if we were given a project like that. And also, Sarah Winshall and Carlos Zozaya, who produced that film, were doing such a great job that it was a great opportunity to learn a lot from them.

Tell me more about that. What were you learning from them?

Ted Schaefer: We just did another movie with Sarah, and we did another movie with Carlos a couple of years ago. My background is mostly assistant directing, but I had done a bunch of things on set, so I had produced other things. And after Butterfly, I had a decent understanding of producing. But people like Sarah that we've been able to work with take it to another level. She has a wealth of experience. Understanding how she sets up and runs things was really useful.

HD: Even her communication with us. How she talked to us. Her knowledge going into festivals and then sales. She had done it from start to finish. And just watching her strategy, how you submit to festivals.

What was her strategy?

HD: Starting off the season with Sundance — and we were lucky enough to premiere there. I think often when people first submit to festivals, myself included, you think, "I'm going to submit to a ton right off the bat." And that's a costly thing to do. But Sarah was like, "No, let's start with Sundance. Let's see where we get. Because if we get into Sundance, it'll propel us and change the way we're going to interact with festivals. But if we don't, then we'll have to do a little more pounding the pavement.” And when we started with sales, Sarah was looking at the offers from a place of knowledge, and she set expectations in a way that was helpful.

What did Sarah and Carlos's on-set producing look like? What things were important to them in terms of creating a good set and good crew morale?