Sundance Institute names 12 Screenwriters Lab fellows

The Lab is one of the Institute’s 24 year-round residency programmes and in this case will work with a team of creative advisors led by artistic director Scott Frank that includes Kasi Lemmons, John Lee Hancock and Naomi Foner.

“Together with my colleague, Labs Director Ilyse McKimmie, we are honoured to welcome our new group of fellows to the January Screenwriters Lab,” said founding director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program Michelle Satter.

“They represent a broad spectrum of independent vision with stories that reflect our complex world with emotional truth and urgency. The Lab is the beginning of our year-round support for these film-makers. We look forward to working with them throughout the life cycle of the project.”

The projects and fellows selected for the 2015 January Screenwriters Lab are:

Archive (USA), Jonathan Minard (co-writer-director) and Scott Rashap  (co-writer);

Beach Rats (USA), Eliza Hittman (writer-director);

Beretta (Qatar), Sophia Al-Maria (writer-director);

Eggplant (China-Canada), Yung Chang (writer-director);

First Match (USA), Olivia Newman (writer-director);

The Hanged (Brazil), Fernando Coimbra (writer-director);

I Was A Simple Man (USA), Christopher Makoto Yogi (writer-director);

Little Woods (USA), Nia DaCosta (writer-director);

Mustang (France), Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (writer-director);

Rogue (USA), Mark Kindred (writer-director);

Untitled Loveless Fable (USA), Brent Green (co-writer-director) and Michael McGinley (co-writer); and

What They Had (USA), Elizabeth Chomko (Writer/Director)

Eight films supported by the Feature Film Program will premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

They are: US Dramatic Competition entries Advantageous; Diary Of A Teenage Girl; Songs My Brothers Taught Me; Stockholm, Pennsylvania; and The Witch; World Cinema Dramatic Competition selections Partisan and Umrika; and Premieres entry Experimenter.