Travis Kelce’s first film as Hollywood producer financed with credits from Inflation Reduction Act

The film, "My Dead Friend Zoe," will star Natalie Morales, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, and Sonequa Martin-Green, per Variety. Despite its catchy name, the Inflation Reduction Act was primarily a climate change industry funding bill with all kinds of provisions designed to go about "confronting the existential threat of the climate crisis and set forth a new era of American innovation and ingenuity to lower consumer costs and drive the global clean energy economy forward."

The film is a generational story about two US veterans as a young woman who served in Afghanistan clashes with her grandfather who fought in Vietnam. The film takes place at the family's ancestral lake house, is repped by CAA, and will premiere at SXSW in March.

The film is reportedly budgeted at under $10 million. Biden touted the Inflation Reduction Act as containing "tax provisions, grant programs, and other funding programs that will offer transformative benefits to working families; disadvantaged, underserved, and low-income communities; Tribes; rural areas; and other areas in need of economic development and growth."

Turns out that means funding for Travis Kelce, first-time film producer and the Swifties' favorite football player, as well! Biden has reportedly been seeking her endorsement. Kelce's film is the first production to take advantage of these Biden climate benefits for underserved communities. The funds were generated through carbon tax credits sold off by Kelce's fellow producer Mike Field.

The credits were a really big deal to another producer on the project, Ray Maiello, who spoke about the risks that come with producing a Hollywood film.

"Hollywood is risky, right? On a scale of one to 10, Hollywood, it is a 9.5. Especially in terms of independent film," Maiello said. "These federal tax credits take the risk down to like a five."

And this trio of producers is only just getting started. They plan to make another film, too, this one on the life of famed New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat called "King Pleasure." Variety notes that the producers' use of federal tax credits for climate change to make their film "could spark a trend in Hollywood of employing the Inflation Reduction Act as a way to raise funds and bolster the flagging indie film sector."