Twelve days after the U.S. release of John Patton Ford’s indie thriller film, Emily the Criminal – about a woman (Aubrey Plaza) who gets involved in a credit card scam trying to escape drowning in student loan debt – President Joe Biden announced a plan to cancel $10,000 of student debt for low to middle-income U.S. students.

The first-time feature film director can’t miss the irony as he talks to HFPA member Michele Manelis in this episode of our podcast series, Golden Globes Around the World. “Suddenly everyone was talking about student debt and how overwhelming it is for graduates expected to pay it off, and my movie had just come out,” Ford says.

Emily the Criminal was also inspired by Ford’s own experience, coming out of university with a huge student loan hanging over him that prevented him really pursuing his dream of being a filmmaker and forcing him to take on other odd jobs for years to keep paying it off. “It’s something most college graduates go through, and I’d never seen a movie that really talked about it,” he elaborates.

Not only did the film get accepted at Sundance Film Festival and go on to garner great reviews, but the filmmaker also laughs at the biggest irony of all, admitting, “Twelve years later, a movie I made about drowning in student loan debt allowed me to finally finish paying off my own!”