A nominee for the 2025 Producers Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, Zoë Worth, a writer, producer, and actor, has built a career at the intersection of creativity and collaboration. Reflecting on the distribution journey for THELMA, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, Zoë discusses navigating high-stakes distribution, balancing risk with reward, and crafting thoughtful strategies to connect films with audiences.

I’d love to start with your premiere of THELMA at Sundance and go through the film’s journey. What was it like when you got the acceptance call? Did you jump right into strategizing for a sale?
The two things I remember were, first, falling to my knees on the deck of my apartment and calling my mom crying, and second, immediately booking an apartment for June Squibb, the lead actress in the film. I’ve been to Sundance many times as a fan and know what it’s like to traverse the ice in Park City. My first moves were all about how we were going to make sure June could get around the festival safely and comfortably.
We didn’t share the movie with anybody until the premiere, though there were a couple of distributors that reached out to watch it. We didn’t sell any foreign rights or come in with a foreign sales agent. We did the risky all-or-nothing play.
Honestly – and I’m not exactly proud of this – it wasn’t really until walking to our sound check ahead of our premiere at the Ray Theater that I turned to our director, Josh Margolin, in the snow and said ‘I guess it’s also time to sell the movie.’ Remember, this was my first time!
I think it’s helpful to hear that the risky play can pay off, though that remains rare. Would you repeat the experience?
I learned so much through this entire process – from development to physical production, post, through going to Sundance and finding a distributor, to release and beyond. I’m so grateful to Magnolia Pictures for having such faith and taking a big swing with a wide release on THELMA. They taught me so much and did such a fantastic job. They also really let Josh, my producing partner Chris Kaye and I into the room to be part of the marketing strategy. I felt like I got a really transparent look into the distribution business, and – as exemplified by my naive blindness in preparing for a sale – I’ve come a long way in how I would approach sales for next time.
What would you ask next time? Or better yet, thinking about the filmmakers headed to Park City, Austin, and other places in the Spring, what would you tell them to research and to learn in advance?
I think we are living in such a scarcity mindset as independent filmmakers that we’re ready to jump at any offer and get that part out of the way. We come from a real crossing-the-fingers perspective and are very focused on mitigating against bad case scenarios. That’s for good reason but I think it’s equally important to ask: what about boom case scenarios? What does winning look like if you were to win big?
Prior to THELMA, I had one-track-mind for getting the best minimum guarantee (MG) as you, of course, have a responsibility to pay back your investors. Now, I have a better understanding of the relationship between the MG and other aspects of backend, and how those factors work together. Ask the question: where’s your upside? Is it just in covering the base of the MG and recoupment? I would suggest talking to investor partners about what it might mean to leave more upside available in the case of a theatrical box office success story. The MG is one way to know you’re making money, but it’s a different kind of responsibility to think through how a team might also make money in ways that might seem more speculative. There are also goals that aren’t purely financial, oblique upsides to consider.
When you’re in the deal room, you’re also asking questions about if you will get a theatrical release, will people go see the film in a theater. I think it’s important to run all deal mechanics through real world possible scenarios. If the film ends up being a box office sensation, how will we feel about the deal we’re holding in our hand right now? What if we don’t get a theatrical release at all, or the film doesn’t do well in theaters, how do we feel about it then? Remember to look at the deal through positive prisms; don’t only focus on worst case scenarios.
Practically: I’d ask someone to walk you through the high case, the medium case, and low case scenarios, laying out the financial percentages and the math of all. Especially if you’re like me and you’re not a math person. Having that trusted person is really critical.
Shifting to working with your distributor Magnolia Pictures, you say it was a collaborative process with marketing, what did that look like? How was your input considered?