Vera Drew's 'Trandemic' Wins Inaugural Found Footage Fund
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- Vera Drew's "Trandemic" won the Transgender Film Center's inaugural Found Footage Feature Fund award, selected from an applicant pool through a multi-stage review process by Duplass Brothers Productions.
- Drew receives a $25,000 cash grant along with mentorship from Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice, a final script review from Duplass, development guidance from Kevin Nicklaus of Sandstone Artists, 15 days of in-kind post-production from Aesthetica Post, a $37,000 post-sound package from Aura Sound and Color, and festival submission waivers including Fantastic Fest.
- "Trandemic" is described as a "cosmic found footage horror-comedy" with plot details kept under wraps; genre distributor Chroma has already made a distribution offer to Drew.
- Duplass Brothers Productions will also support the three other finalist projects with $1,000 crowdfunding matching contributions to help those teams advance their films.
- Drew, a director, writer, editor, and performer, previously made The People's Joker (2022), which was a 2025 nominee for the John Cassavetes Award at the Indie Spirits.
- Mark Duplass said the moment is ripe for "auteur-driven found footage horror," noting that any finalist who scoped their project to a $25,000 budget has the harder planning work behind them.
Why it matters: The $25,000 grant plus an estimated $40,000+ in in-kind post-production and mentorship gives Drew a viable micro-budget path to a genre feature at a moment Duplass himself calls a "real moment" for auteur-driven found footage horror — a structural boost that bypasses traditional studio gatekeeping for trans creators in genre filmmaking.
