South Florida FinallyGets Its Close-Up
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The 2026 South Florida Film Forum lands at MAD Arts in Dania Beach on March 28–29, bringing Sung Kang, FOX, Blumhouse, and 40+ speakers to your backyard for a weekend that could reshape the region's creative future.
In a creative community that runs on hustle, the hardest thing to come by isn't talent — it's access. The South Florida Film Forum exists to fix that. And this year, it's the most stacked it's ever been.
They say the film industry is all about who you know. For South Florida filmmakers, that adage has long felt more like a barrier than a blueprint. Too much talent has watched projects get greenlit in Atlanta, New York, or Los Angeles while Broward County's stunning locations, diverse communities, and deep production roots sat underutilized. The 2026 South Florida Film Forum — presented by WEG Films in partnership with Film Lauderdale and Broward County — is the event that's been quietly dismantling that story, one connection at a time.
Returning to the singular MAD Arts venue in Dania Beach on Saturday, March 28 and Sunday, March 29, the Forum packs two days full of panels, hands-on workshops, screenings, networking events, and two wrap parties — all under one roof designed by dreamers, for dreamers.
A Room Where Hollywood Meets Home
This year's speaker lineup is unlike anything the Forum has assembled before. Sung Kang — best known as Han from the Fast & Furious franchise — joins as a featured speaker alongside producer Brian Yang for an inside look at their new independent film Drifter, a gritty underdog story shot with real drift racing athletes that's a testament to what independent filmmakers can pull off when authenticity is non-negotiable. Executives from FOX, Blumhouse, Warner Bros., Amazon MGM Studios, and Disney are also among the 40+ speakers in attendance — the kind of room that would normally require a flight to Los Angeles to get into.
According to Eddy Moon, head of programming at WEG Films, the prestige of names is almost secondary to the spirit speakers bring. The Forum spends months searching for industry leaders who work on content local audiences love — but who also believe that a rising tide lifts all ships. "Gatekeeping is a prevalent part of the world of Film & TV," Moon explained. "We work hard to find speakers who love to be honest, and love to help the next generation of storytellers on their way up."
Gatekeeping is a prevalent part of the world of Film & TV. We work hard to find speakers who believe that a rising tide lifts all ships — those who love to be honest, and love to help the next generation of storytellers — Eddy Moon, Head of Programming, WEG Films
Of the 40+ speakers, over half are South Florida-based filmmakers and actors working at the highest levels of the industry — proof that the Forum isn't just importing voices, but putting local talent exactly where they belong: on the main stage.
The Full Weekend: What to Expect
With simultaneous programming across three rooms — The Lab, The Studio, and The Workshop — the Forum is built to serve everyone from a first-year actor trying to land their first audition to a seasoned producer looking for financing connections. Here's a taste of what's on the schedule:
Beyond the Panel: Six Workshops Built for Doing
One of the clearest evolutions of this year's Forum is its full slate of six hands-on workshops — a direct response to audience feedback asking for more "learning by doing." These aren't Q&As with a moderator. They're immersive sessions where you leave with a skill, not just an inspiration.
Moon is particularly excited about two of them, and for reasons that say something meaningful about which departments the industry tends to overlook. On the costume side, Logan Moises leads a tactile deep-dive into aging and distressing wardrobe — transforming fresh-off-the-rack clothing into garments with real history and character. On the sound side, Dan Abrusci covers both on-set dialogue capture and post-production sound design, treating audio not as an afterthought but as a creative weapon. "The costume and sound departments never get the love they deserve," Moon said — and this year's Forum is doing something about it.
Rounding out the workshop lineup: Vivian Rubio flips the script for directors in an acting workshop designed to build a vocabulary that actually unlocks great performances; veteran line producer Andy Schefter (whose credits include Empire and Bully) breaks down the scheduling process as a logic puzzle, not a spreadsheet; Eric "Hollywood" Corbin gets hands-on with practical horror VFX and creature effects; and writer Peter Mir runs a writers' room simulation focused on the structural mechanics of a joke — what it actually means to "punch it up."
The Venue: MAD Arts Was Built for This
The choice of MAD Arts in Dania Beach isn't incidental. The space is part museum, part community hub, part laboratory — what Moon describes as "a building designed by dreamers." It's a space where art and technology collide in a way that mirrors exactly what the Forum is trying to accomplish, and the alignment between MAD Arts, Film Lauderdale, Broward County, and WEG Films runs deeper than logistics.
Moon was effusive in crediting MAD's Marc Aptakin, whose support of local artists he called something he's "never seen anyone before him do." The Forum, he said simply, would not be possible without him.
MAD Arts is a museum, a community hub, and a laboratory — it is a building designed by dreamers. It represents everything we love about South Florida and the arts: a space where you can experiment, learn, and be blown away by the synergy of art and technology. — Eddy Moon, WEG Films
Broward County: The Advantage You Haven't Used Yet
For Film Lauderdale — the official film commission for Broward County — the Forum is a direct extension of its core mission: building a genuinely film-friendly ecosystem in the region. South Florida productions are trending upward. More projects are being shot here, and increasingly, some are being developed and greenlit here too.
What the Forum does is put all of that in the same room as the decision-makers. Visiting producers from outside Florida get a firsthand look at the full picture: beautiful locations, an affordable and talented local cast and crew base, solid infrastructure, and the incentives that Film Lauderdale helps unlock. The reframe Moon is pushing — that shooting in South Florida is "a huge advantage, not a liability" — is the cultural shift the Forum is actively working to cement.
If You're Going: Talk to Everyone
Moon's advice for first-timers is refreshingly simple: be present, be open, and don't be shy. "You are in a safe place, amongst very like-minded people." The crowd spans the full range of experience — from people only months into their creative careers to those with a decade or more of industry work behind them. The Forum is explicitly designed to hold all of it.
Sunday's speed networking session captures this spirit perfectly: four minutes per connection, with one rule — no talking about movies or moviemaking. Find the human first, find the collaborator second. It's the kind of rule that tells you everything about what the Forum is actually trying to build.
Programming team: Ronald Baez · Flor Portieri · Diana Garle · Olivia Timmons · Carolina Caruso · Eddy Moon (Head of Programming)
The Bigger Picture: A Birthplace, Not Just an Event
By summer or fall most years, Moon starts hearing about local productions that exist — in whole or in part — because of conversations that started at the South Florida Film Forum. A networking moment in March quietly becomes a film set in September. That ripple effect is the quiet metric the Forum lives by, and it's one that compounds each year.
In five years, Moon hopes the Forum will be recognized as proof of concept for what Florida's film industry can become when it's given the room to thrive — including at the state government level. More than that, he wants it known as the birthplace of feature films, short films, music videos, and new content that wouldn't have existed without connections made under that Dania Beach roof.
South Florida has always had the talent. It has the locations, the culture, the hunger. What the South Florida Film Forum provides is something harder to manufacture: the room where all of it gets to meet itself.
2026 South Florida Film Forum
March 28–29 · MAD Arts, Dania Beach Presented by WEG Films × Film Lauderdale × Broward County
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