'Humans in the Loop' receives Film Independent’s Sloan distribution grant, enters Oscar race

Writer-Director Aranya Sahay’s feature Humans in the Loop has been awarded the Film Independent Sloan Distribution Grant, as the film officially qualifies for Academy Awards consideration.

The Sloan Distribution Grant, given by Film Independent and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, supports narrative features that engage meaningfully with science or technology themes or characters, helping to reach wider audiences through strategic release support.

Over the past two decades, the Sloan Film program has backed more than 850 screenplays, short films and feature films, including The Imitation Game, Hidden Figures, The Man Who Knew Infinity, and Oppenheimer. The grant makes Aranya Sahay and Mathivanan Rajendran Film Independent Fellows.

Humans in the Loop tells the story of an Indigenous woman working at a rural data-annotation centre in India. The film examines the ethics and inequities of machine learning while foregrounding empathy, lived experience, and cultural knowledge.

“We are at a cusp with artificial intelligence, and humanity needs to take responsibility for the kind of AI and the kind of future we are building. I’m deeply grateful to Film Independent and the Sloan Foundation for allowing us to take this conversation across the US. Humans in the Loop is about the human heartbeat inside technology, and this grant recognises the people whose labour and stories often remain unseen,” said Writer-Director Aranya Sahay.

“Through Humans in the Loop and our work at the Museum of Imagined Futures, we’ve been creating space for technologists and creatives to rethink how stories about technology are told,” added Mathivanan Rajendran, Producer. “The Sloan Foundation’s support and now the film’s entry into the Oscar race are a validation of Aranya’s screenplay that creatives can help shape the future of tech”, added Aranya.

“We are proud to help bring awareness in the US about Humans in the Loop through the Sloan Distribution Grant,” said Dea Vazquez, Associate Director of Fiction Programs at Film Independent. “The film’s rigorous and deeply human approach to exploring AI and the role of technology in our lives perfectly reflects the mission of the grant.”

Earlier this month, the producers onboarded Misaq Kazimi as Executive Producer to lead the film’s US distribution strategy, which the grant will support further. “It is no surprise that Humans in the Loop has received this prestigious grant from a preeminent US film institution, as the film is both timely and relevant globally,” said Kazimi.

“We have already begun our impact screenings, hosting a weeklong theatrical showcase in Los Angeles and at UCLA, bringing together filmmakers, academia, and technologists to have interconnected discourse on the film’s pivotal question of how AI is handled by humanity. These conversation-sparker screenings will continue, and anyone interested in the film's themes is invited to help us bring the film to their city,” concluded Kazimi.

Following its US theatrical release and meeting other eligibility criteria, Humans in the Loop has officially qualified to be a contender for the 98th Academy Awards, where it will compete to be in the Best Original Screenplay category.