Gandbhir, Pollard and Payne join immigration-court short Water Cooler
Geeta Gandbhir, Sam Pollard and Alisa Payne have joined the short documentary Water Cooler as executive producers, Deadline reported on 9 October 2026.
The credit puts three veteran non-fiction makers behind a 12-minute film directed, produced, shot and edited by Emma V.F., according to Deadline. In documentaries, an executive producer often provides creative support and help with festivals and distribution rather than running the daily shoot.
Water Cooler was filmed from November 2025 through January 2026 in the corridors of immigration court at Federal Plaza in New York City, Deadline reported. The film pairs casual conversation by ICE agents around a water cooler with scenes of agents detaining immigrants who had attended required court hearings to seek legal status.
The production comes from Spoonbill Stories and Message Pictures. Message Pictures was founded by Gandbhir, Pollard and Payne. Blair Foster is also listed as an executive producer, and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe composed the original score.
The short won Best Documentary Short at Palm Springs International ShortFest 2026, a festival win that made it eligible for Oscar consideration, Deadline reported. That term means a qualifying festival prize allows a short to be put forward to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences without a full commercial run.
Water Cooler has screened at DC/DOX and is programmed for the Hamptons International Film Festival, the Woodstock Film Festival on 18 October, AFI Fest on 24 October and the St. Louis International Film Festival. Its listed runtime is 12 minutes, according to the filmmaker's site.
Payne earned an Oscar nomination for producing The Perfect Neighbor. The filmmaker's materials for Water Cooler describe immigration courts as deportation traps under the Trump administration, according to the same filmmaker's site.
