Film and Television
Not all university assignments end up screening at a major film festival. Anne Koolen’s did.
Koolen had just finished her thesis film for the University of Southern California and planned to pitch it to festivals.
The first on her list was the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival. The application window closed just two days after the film was completed.
Koolen was selected for the Student Showcase alongside six other student filmmakers for her sports drama “Fuel Up.” The logline reads: “Haunted by the nightmare of her boyfriend’s deadly race car crash, Ava must conquer her fear of racing before she loses the dream they once shared forever.”
Koolen was initially inspired to tell the story after the death of a driver at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in 2023. She was there to support her brother, a racer.
She asked herself: “What if what we love is dangerous?”
“We should not just focus on winning and performance,” Koole says, but instead, “listen to our hearts and what we really want.”
Koolen believes that message especially resonates in an era where social media can make every aspect of life feel competitive. We need to earn money and have a high-status career and be the best across all external success metrics.
“Sometimes, you’re so focused on that part of it that you forget if you are still staying true to yourself,” Koolen says.
That message is examined in the film across two timelines: in the present, where Ava fights to stay on her racing team and rediscover the joy of the sport, and in the past, where memories with her boyfriend are juxtaposed with the flashbacks of his fatal crash.
A real racecar was used for filming, on loan from the professional team Forte Racing. Koolen and her collaborators filmed at Standard Vision Studios to record parts of the racecar scenes — the car wouldn’t fit through the door at USC, Koolen says.
The racing team was also on location to demonstrate authentic racecar protocol: how to properly start the car, exit the vehicle, brake and turn the wheel.
“Working with the real team made it look real,” Koolen says. Beyond the mechanics of racing, Koolen says the production deepened her understanding of collaboration on a film set.
Now, she’s ready for what comes next.
“I’m focusing on workshopping my script further and trying to work on new things. It’s very surreal to me to be [at Cannes], but then after I’m like, ‘Okay, now let’s go back to the next thing. Where are we going to go next?’”
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