2018 Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab Fellows
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Media Contact: December 13, 2017 Spencer Alcorn 310.360.1981 [email protected] 2018 Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab Fellows Announced: Diverse Group of Writers, Advisors Convene to Develop Timely Projects Bold Innovation and Risk-Taking Encouraged at Immersive Lab, Part of Ongoing Creative Support; Twelve Alumni Projects to Premiere at 2018 Sundance Film Festival Los Angeles, CA - Sixteen emerging screenwriters will come together at Sundance Institute’s 2018 Screenwriters Lab, an immersive five-day writers’ workshop announced today and taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah, January 12-17, 2018. The Lab brings independent screenwriters together with accomplished writers, in an environment that encourages the art and craft of writing and creative risk-taking. Through one-on-one story sessions with Creative Advisors, Fellows work intensively on their feature film scripts and engage in an artistically rigorous process that offers them indispensable lessons in craft. The Lab is the first step in a year-round continuum of customized creative and tactical support for each project and team. The January Screenwriters Lab has been created and organized under the leadership of Sundance Institute's Feature Film Program Founding Director Michelle Satter and Labs Director Ilyse McKimmie. The team of Creative Advisors includes Artistic Director Scott Frank, Andrea Berloff, D.V. DeVincentis, Naomi Foner, Richard LaGravenese, Kasi Lemmons, Jenny Lumet, Ole Christian Madsen, Walter Mosley, Jessie Nelson, Nicole Perlman, Howard Rodman, Michael Showalter, Zach Sklar, Joan Tewkesbury, Bill Wheeler and Tyger Williams. “We're excited to bring together this remarkable group of emerging artists with distinctive voices and dynamic stories,” said Satter. “Strong female characters challenging traditional narratives, issues of migration and disenfranchisement, and the shared human desire for connection and family are several of the timely themes explored in these scripts. We're thrilled to begin our relationship with these storytellers, and look forward to supporting them throughout the lifecycle of their projects.” Twelve films supported by the Feature Film Program will premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. In U.S. Dramatic Competition, those films include American Animals, written and directed by Bart Layton; Blindspotting, co-written by Rafael Casal & Daveed Diggs and directed by Carlos López Estrada; I Think We’re Alone Now, written by Mike Makowsky and directed by Reed Morano; Monsters and Men, written and directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green; Nancy, written and directed by Christina Choe; and Sorry to Bother You, written and directed by Boots Riley. In World Cinema Dramatic Competition, those films include Butterflies, written and directed by Tolga Karaҫelik, and Un Traductor, written by Lindsay Gossling and co-directed by Rodrigo and Sebastián Barriuso. Other FFP-supported films include Night Comes On, co-written by Angelica Nwandu and Jordana Spiro and directed by Jordana Spiro; Skate Kitchen, co-written by Crystal Moselle and Aslihan Unaldi and directed by Crystal Moselle; and We the Animals, co-written by Daniel Kitrosser and Jeremiah Zagar and directed by Jeremiah Zagar, all of which will premiere in NEXT. Additionally, What They Had, written and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, will screen in the Premieres section of the Festival. The projects and fellows selected for the 2018 January Screenwriters Lab are: Afrika (Bulgaria) / Maya Vitkova (writer/director): Afrika weaves together the stories of a family over the course of one year, a fantastical journey of love and loss, across three generations. Maya Vitkova is a director, screenwriter, and producer, whose debut film, Viktoria, was the first Bulgarian feature in competition at the Sundance Film Festival. The film played at more than 70 international festivals, including Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary, Busan, AFI Fest and BFI London, and received praise from the Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, Vogue Magazine and other publications. The New Yorker listed it at number 4 of the best films of 2016, and named Maya Vitkova one of the five best directors in the world. Vitkova was chosen as a European Film Promotion’s “Producer on the Move” in Cannes and is an EAVE 2017 graduate. Broadway (Greece) / Christos Massalas (writer/director): A band of young street performers and pickpockets find an unlikely home in an abandoned mall in Athens. The balance of their makeshift family is threatened when a former member of their group returns after being released from prison. Born in Greece, Christos Massalas is a graduate of the London Film School. His short films have received awards from around the world and have screened at international film festivals including Cannes, Locarno, AFI Fest, Guanajuato, BFI, and Nouveau Cinéma, among others. His latest short film Copa-Loca is nominated for the European Film Academy Award. Broadway will be his feature directorial debut. Doha (U.S.A. / Morocco) / Eimi Imanishi (writer/director): Disheartened by her deportation from Europe, Mariam is forced to return home to Western Sahara. Adrift in the very place that’s supposed to be her home, she searches for the means to assert agency over her own life. Eimi Imanishi is a Japanese American filmmaker. She earned her BFA at the Slade School of Art, University College London where she majored in sculpture. She has directed two award-winning short films, Battalion to My Beat and One Up, that have played at numerous festivals including the Toronto International Film Festival and Clermont Ferrand. The Huntress (U.S.A. / Mexico) / Suzanne Andrews Correa (writer/director): In Juarez, Mexico, where violence against women goes unnoticed and unpunished, an unlikely heroine emerges to seek justice. This project is the recipient of the Feature Film Program Latina Fellowship. Suzanne Andrews Correa is a Mexican American director and screenwriter based in New York City. A recent MFA graduate of the Film Program at Columbia University, she has worked in the industry for almost a decade as