Ben Wang and Minnie Mills Wrap Illinois Road-Trip Indie 'Admissions'
Ben Wang and Minnie Mills have wrapped production on Admissions, an independent road-trip film about college admissions, according to Deadline. The shoot finished in Illinois. It pairs the two actors as colleagues who see the system in very different ways.
In the film, Wang and Mills play college admissions officers with opposing views. Admissions officers read applications and help choose incoming classes. Here, the job takes them on a recruitment trip across Illinois, visiting schools and meeting prospective students on the road.
That journey was filmed where it is set. The production shot in Chicago and in communities across Illinois, according to Deadline. It received support from the Illinois Film Production Tax Credit, a state programme that offsets part of qualifying money spent locally.
Admissions was both written and directed by Aimee Pham and Kai Sampadian. Independent, in this context, means made outside the big studio system with separate financing. The film is the duo's first feature.
Pham and Sampadian are based in Los Angeles and studied at the University of Southern California. They earlier wrote Place to Be, which made the 2025 Black List, Hollywood's annual survey of the most-liked screenplays yet to be filmed. Their short film House Rules premiered at the Seattle Asian American Film Festival, where it won the Audience Choice Award for Favorite Narrative Short, according to Deadline.
On the business side, CJ Kari served as executive producer. Elias Ginsberg, Christian Vergara and Jake Prine served as producers, with Danni Varenhorst, Sophie Pelosi, Jillian Le and Olivia Schwartz as co-producers. Pham and Sampadian are represented by Untitled Entertainment, CAA and Vainshtein Law.
What makes this stand out is the tight focus. Two people. One long trip. The plot turns an office job into a close-quarters debate about access, ambition and who college is for.
