Jeff Caruso of Wrapbook moderates AFM 2025, redefining film finance at American Film Market 2025, leading the “Packaging to Payback” panel on investment and innovation.
The American Film Market’s opening finance panel frames the real conversation this year — not just who has capital, but whether the infrastructure exists to deploy it responsibly.
The Future of Film Finance Begins at AFM 2025
Walk the Century City corridors at AFM 2025 long enough and you hear the same phrase repeated in different accents: “the market is changing.”
It always is.
But what’s actually shifting this cycle: underneath the slate announcements and cocktail-hour dealmaking — is the infrastructure.
How independent films get financed, tracked, paid, and delivered is being rebuilt almost entirely, and the producers who understand that shift will have a meaningful advantage over those still running productions on spreadsheets and handshake agreements. That’s the conversation Jeff Caruso wants to have at this year’s AFM film finance panel, and it’s one worth paying attention to.
Jeff Caruso, Senior Vice President of Sales and Success at Wrapbook, is moderating the opening finance session — “Finance I: From Packaging to Payback: Investment, Incentives and International Markets.”
He’s assembled a panel that covers the full capital stack, from producing legacy to tax credit enforcement to boundary-pushing development. His thirteen years at Cast and Crew gave him a ground-level view of how productions actually fail administratively, and he joined Wrapbook to help close those gaps.
“We are still dealing in an industry that is very antiquated.
The workflows are all very manual.
Anything that can cut through these outdated processes is going to make sure that company is a cut above everyone else.”
Jeff Caruso
SVP Sales and Success
Wrapbook
That’s not hyperbole. Any producer who has reconciled a P-card mid-shoot, chased a payroll run across time zones, or manually cross-referenced incentive eligibility against a changing state schedule knows exactly what he means.
What the panel actually covers
The lineup Caruso has built is specific in a way that average AFM panels rarely manage.
Sam Pressman brings the producing perspective from Pressman Film — a company with decades of independent production history.
Josh Rosenbaum of Waypoint Entertainment has worked with writers at the level of Charlie Kaufman and Boots Riley, which means his financing experience involves non-commercial projects that need creative capital structures, not just gap financing.
Jeremy Ross from Black Rabbits has more than 36 films produced, the kind of volume where process becomes survival.
Janine Davey’s background at PWC, 20th Century Fox, and Netflix puts billions in tax incentive work behind her perspective.
“I think our panel
is just lights out.
These are people who know this business inside and out. They’ve literally spent their entire careers in this business.”
jeff caruso
That combination matters.
Independent film finance conversations tend to collapse into one of two failure modes: too abstract to be actionable, or too tactical to reveal the larger picture. Pairing a tax incentive specialist with a producer who works at the margins of commercial cinema forces both conversations to happen at once — how does the money work, and what does it actually get made?
Technology as production infrastructure, not decoration
The more important point Caruso keeps returning to is that AI tools in production are not a novelty or a cost-cutting gimmick. They are increasingly the difference between a production that can manage its own complexity and one that can’t.
Wrapbook’s platform handles payroll, accounts payable, incentive identification, and invoice processing — functions that on mid-budget independent productions are often split across multiple systems, multiple vendors, and multiple people who don’t communicate with each other.
“You can’t get to the sexy part until you understand and master the responsible part.
Line producers and controllers walk a fine line —
they have to realize the creator’s vision while protecting financiers’ interests.”
jeff caruso
The AFM film finance environment has shifted enough that this is no longer an optional conversation.
Family offices and institutional allocators entering the independent space — a trend that has accelerated over the past two years — are asking questions about back-end controls that most productions aren’t built to answer.
Wrapbook’s accounts payable command center, which automates invoice processing and reconciliation, speaks directly to that concern. It gives financiers a cleaner line of sight into where their capital is going, without adding friction to the creative process.
“It’s additive to the job you’re already doing.
We’re helping people be more efficient.
Imagine what you can do when you have all of this at your fingertips.”
jeff caruso
Why Century City matters for this conversation
AFM’s move to Century City has changed the physical context for these conversations in ways that are still being absorbed.
The closer proximity to the financial and legal infrastructure of Los Angeles — rather than the Santa Monica hotel corridor that shaped AFM’s personality for decades — puts independent film finance discussions in a room that’s geographically adjacent to where private capital decisions actually get made. That’s not symbolic. It reflects a real shift in who is attending, and why.
“The thing that always excites me about AFM year after year is the possibility that this is the place where capital meets commerce.”
jeff caruso
I’ve held Film Market credentials long enough to watch the market cycle through multiple identity crises. The sessions that actually move the needle are the ones where working practitioners talk about the real mechanics of getting a film financed, made, and delivered — not the aspirational version, but the one with accounting reconciliation problema and the incentive eligibility question that nobody flagged until week three of principal photography.
That’s what this panel is positioned to deliver. Whether it does will depend on how deep the conversation goes once the room fills up.
For independent producers and their finance partners, the Wrapbook session is the right place to start the week. Not because it will resolve the fundamental tension between art and arithmetic — nothing at a market does that — but because it will clarify the tools and structures available to close that gap.
Mini FAQ: AFM 2025 & Wrapbook
Q1: What is the AFM 2025 film finance panel about?
It’s a premier session exploring investment, production incentives, and the global financial landscape for independent films — moderated by Wrapbook’s Jeff Caruso.
Q2: How is Wrapbook changing film production?
Wrapbook simplifies production payroll, budgeting, and tax incentives with AI-powered tools designed to make film financing faster, more transparent, and more secure.
Q3: Where can I learn more about global film incentives?
Visit Wrapbook’s Resource Page for region-by-region breakdowns and tax credit insights.
Q4: Does AI actually help with film finance, or is it still mostly a marketing term in production?
In production operations, AI tools have moved well past marketing language. Platforms like Wrapbook are using automation to handle invoice processing, payroll reconciliation, and incentive identification — tasks that previously required significant manual labor and were prone to error. The productivity gain is real. The more meaningful question is whether producers are using these tools at the finance and reporting level in a way that satisfies institutional and family office investors who increasingly expect back-end controls comparable to other alternative asset classes.
Q5: How do production incentives actually affect independent film financing at the packaging stage?
Incentives are not a bonus — they are increasingly a structural component of the financing package. Qualifying for a state or territory’s tax credit program can determine whether a project reaches its minimum threshold for principal photography. The problem is that incentive programs change frequently, eligibility requirements vary widely by jurisdiction, and the audit trail required to actually collect them is more rigorous than most independent productions are set up to manage from day one. That’s where specialist expertise — and tools that track it automatically — make a material difference to whether a film closes its financing or doesn’t.
Q6: Why should independent producers prioritize operational infrastructure before they have a greenlit project?
Because financiers — particularly the family offices and institutional allocators entering the space — are doing pre-investment diligence on operational controls, not just creative materials. A producer who can demonstrate clean accounts payable processes, a credible payroll structure, and an incentive capture plan before the term sheet is signed is a materially less risky counterparty. Waiting until production to build that infrastructure is the most common and most costly mistake independent producers make.
AFM 2025 reveals The Possibility of What’s Next
The independent film finance conversation at AFM 2025 is more technically sophisticated than it was five years ago, and the producers who show up prepared — with a real understanding of incentive structures, payroll compliance, and the operational expectations of institutional capital — will leave Century City with more than a business card. They’ll leave with a viable path to closing their next project.
Jeff’s “AI as a tool, not the job” line really stands out. As someone who’s financed a few indie projects, it’s encouraging to hear that kind of realism instead of tech buzzwords
smart, a little indulgent, passion for the craft.
I didn’t realize how out of date the tech is for budgeting and incentives. No bueno
Jeeez. Great panel. Do they televise these things? I’d watch.
AFM has always intrigued me. smart, funny, and unexpectedly uplifting. It’s nice to see a business discussion with real heart.
discussion around streamlining finance really resonated. Fewer middlemen, more clarity. More diligence