It features an ensemble cast including Pauline Chalamet, Keith Poulson, Larry Fessenden, Roger Howarth, Cindy De La Cruz, Joel Nagle, Declan Eells, Joseph Longo, Chanel and Dior Umoh, Lily Sondik, Amir Royale and Alexandra Templer.

What Doesn't Float premiered at the Lighthouse International Film Festival on June 10, 2023, and began a theatrical release via Circle Collective in the United States on September 22, 2023.

While the outcomes vary, a unified sense of the city emerges: New York becomes a mirror to the ego reflecting our true character, while the rest sinks to the bottom.”[4] Writer Shauna Fitzgerald and producer Pauline Chalamet were at dinner, having a conversation about the weird things that make New York City "unlivable", director Luca Balser happened to pass by, and joined the conversation.

They filed the LLC in Atlanta, where Walden is from, and created Gummy Films, which started as a collective and now functions as a production and post-production company, run by them.

Chalamet's vignette was shot in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and at Floyd Bennett Field, a World War II airport turned national park.

Overall, Zilko thought that, "The stylistic flourishes that make a film recognizable as “indie” [...] are like salt for a young director [...] “What Doesn’t Float” never gets anywhere near the worst end of the spectrum, but Balser and Fitzgerald certainly over-season on multiple occasions.