Desert Empire Filmmaker Nonprofit Aims to Make Inland Empire the ‘Hollywood of Indie Film’

When Cindy and Casey Ball talk about the future of film in the Inland Empire, they don’t hedge. They talk about transformation.

“I want my big vision. I want to make the Inland Empire the Hollywood of indie film,” said co-founder and president Casey Ball, describing the mission of the Desert Empire Filmmaker Foundation, a new nonprofit serving filmmakers across the Inland Empire and Coachella Valley.

The organization, known as DEFF, began taking shape around 2024, when the couple realized they didn’t want local filmmakers to feel forced to move to Los Angeles to build a career. The idea became real in 2025, when they started formal nonprofit paperwork, entered what they call their “awareness phase,” and began showing up anywhere film or arts conversations were happening.

“Right now we’re in a process of just letting everybody know basically that we’re here,” said co-founder and executive director Cindy Ball. “We’re outreach. We’re just trying to meet as many people and let them know what our ideas are and that we want to help people.” That work includes attending festivals and arts events, talking with local and state officials, helping with story and scripts, and guiding filmmakers through production and the film festival world.

Their recent collaboration, the wrestling short “Babyface,” grew out of that approach. Local announcer and filmmaker Mike Wexler wanted to direct his first film, and the Balls helped him shape a story about an up-and-coming tag team wrestling duo pushed to make a shady choice that tests their partnership. The film was shot at Romero’s Boxing Gym in San Bernardino, a space that opened its doors to the crew for days and even cooked tacos for the shoot.

“He’s gone through hard times and he’s having to rebuild,” Casey said of the gym’s owner. “He’s got to rebuild his whole roster… and that’s why I was like, I gotta help this guy too.” Every time this short film (Babyface) is promoted, the gym is promoted too. 

For Cindy, the Inland Empire’s film potential is tied to how different it is from Los Angeles.

“It’s not saturated like LA,” she said. “Out here… local small business owners… have opened their doors and not charged us anything for filming at their establishments. It’s more that they’re intrigued. Like, ‘Oh, wow, you want to film something. That’s so cool.’” She added that the region can double for almost anything: “Inland Empire… that’s still, like, Big Bear. That’s Joshua Tree… we have almost every geographical kind of environment.”

But the couple is blunt about the systemic obstacles. Casey recently testified at a California Arts Council listening session in San Bernardino, pointing out that the Inland Empire’s population rivals several better-funded coastal counties combined. “In California, the per capita spending, government spending on arts per person is $3,” he said. “For people in San Bernardino County… it’s 40 cents per person. That’s about 15% of the average. And here’s what we’re doing already without help, without that arts funding assistance.”

DEFF’s early momentum has been helped by Arts Connection, the nonprofit arts council for San Bernardino County. The Balls joined its fiscal sponsorship program, which allows them to operate with the structure of an established 501(c)(3) while they work with an attorney on their own federal nonprofit status. “We operate under the guidance of a proper 501 that’s well established and well connected,” Casey said. “They’ve been helping us out continuously.”

Their credibility comes not just from advocacy but from work on the ground. Before launching DEFF, Cindy and Casey helped lead Phase Three Films, producing the short “Extra Hearts” with support from San Bernardino Valley College and Revival Arcade as part of the College 48 competition. “It kind of proved to us how well the machine was working,” Cindy said. “And it verifies that we do know what we’re doing.”

“Extra Hearts” went on to screen at Filmapalooza in Portugal after winning its local 48 Hour Film Project competition. “Filmapalooza is where all the 48 winners go,” Casey said. “I always describe it as like the World Cup of independent film — short films.”

Money and education are at the heart of what they want to change. Cindy says too many filmmakers focus only on making the film and not on how to get it seen. “We can make a film, but if it just lives on our hard drive, no one knows about it, then that’s like a big [problem],” she said. She points to a stat she shares often: “$1 invested in film is $24 for the return,” she said, citing a trickle down spending on hotels, restaurants, gas, stores and local jobs.

Casey learned the financial side by necessity on a 2023 short he crowdfunded. “I crowdfunded it and I got way more than I was hoping for,” he said. “But I learned… you have to raise your own money, market it yourself… Nobody’s gonna come to you with a blank check and say, ‘Here you go kid, make your dreams happen.’” He now encourages filmmakers to “quantify everything,” from craft services and cleaning supplies to what it would have cost to pay nonunion scale. “People like to say, ‘Oh, we made it for nothing.’ But it’s not true because everything costs something.”

DEFF also emphasizes showing up — on set and at festivals. “So few people even go on the circuit or give a proper festival run,” Casey said. “Maybe they don’t even go to them when it screens. Showing up is the name of the game.” On their own projects, they’ve brought five to 10 first-timers onto set at once, giving new actors and crew members their first IMDb credits.

Part of the reason they structured DEFF as a nonprofit is to unlock relationships that might not exist for a for-profit production company. Shortly after filing paperwork with the state, they started approaching vendors. “We went and approached every single vendor there, everybody,” Casey said. 

That approach has already led to concrete support. RED Digital Cinema hosted 11 Inland Empire filmmakers at its Orange County headquarters and later loaned DEFF a cinema camera package, valued at about $17,000, for their most recent 48 Hour film. Companies like Scriptation, ShotDeck and Saturation.io have provided software licenses for giveaways and are working with DEFF on future workshops.

Programming is growing around those partnerships. The Most DEF Podcast gives local filmmakers a platform to talk about their projects and experiences shooting in the region. A planned 2026 event called “DEFF Fest” would combine a film festival, mixer and fundraiser. DEFF is also launching a YouTube series that introduces younger viewers to influential films and contextualizes why they matter, after noticing that “so many Gen Z people really have not seen any movies,” Casey said.

The Balls say one of the biggest disparities they faced early on was simply not knowing who else was making films nearby. “The biggest hurdle… was not knowing the people, not knowing how to get started, not knowing anybody who already knew something and inviting me on set,” Casey said. Cindy sees the same gap now. “Lack of mixers and events for filmmakers,” she said. 

They want DEFF to change that — and to send a message that it’s never too late to start. “Anyone can be a film[maker],” Cindy said. “You don’t have to be young, you don’t have to be male, female, whatever. You could be 60 years old making your first film… we’re here for all filmmakers of any background.”

“For us, it’s that we want to help people get started on the small scale and then we want to help established people think on the big scale and move up and level up,” Casey said. “Become the force to be reckoned with that we know this area can.”

More information about Desert Empire Filmmaker Foundation is available at def.foundation and on Instagram at @desertempirefilmmaker.