Los Angeles,CA Sundance Institute today announced the 10 projects selected from more than 2,500 submissions for its second Episodic Story Lab, representing some of the most promising new writers creating TV and online series. The Lab supports first-time show creators and is one of 24 residency Labs the Institute hosts each year for independent artists in theatre, film, new media and episodic content.Under the leadership of Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, with Jennifer Goyne Blake, Senior Manager of the Episodic Story Lab, Fellows will work with an accomplished group of showrunners, television executives and producers on developing their spec pilot and series overview. They will participate in one-on-one creative story meetings, Writers' Rooms for selected projects, pitch sessions and group conversations about the creative process and current episodic field. Following the Lab, Fellows receive customized, year-round support from Feature Film Program staff, Creative Advisors and Industry Mentors.
Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, By offering both creative and industry guidance, our Episodic Story Lab prepares exciting, diverse voices to navigate the evolving landscape for episodic stories in order to advance both their projects and their careers.
Satter said, The Fellows selected for this year's Episodic Story Lab bring a wide range of creative experience from disciplines including filmmaking, music, literature, comedy and new media. We are excited by the diversity of perspectives represented by this new group, whose projects are ambitious, timely and original in voice and vision.
Creative Advisors for the Lab include: Rich Appel (Executive Producer, Family Guy), Jenny Bicks (Executive Producer, Sex and the City), Chris Brancato (Co-Creator and Showrunner, Narcos), Mara Brock Akil (Creator, Being Mary Jane), Chic Eglee (Writer/Producer); Tom Fontana (Creator, Oz); Howard Gordon (Co-Creator, Homeland); Jenni Konner (Co-Showrunner, Girls); Amy Lippman (Executive Producer, Masters of Sex); Glen Mazzara (Creator, Damien); Jeff Melvoin (Executive Producer, Army Wives) and Veena Sud (Creator, The Killing).
Industry Mentors include: Betsy Beers (Partner, Shondaland), Bob DeBitetto (President, Brand Strategy, Business Development and A+E Studios, A+E Networks), Dante Di Loreto (President of Television, Chernin Entertainment), Susie Fitzgerald (Executive Vice President of Scripted Programming for AMC and SundanceTV), Peter Friedlander (Vice President, Netflix Original Series), Mark Johnson (Producer, Gran Via Productions), Sophie Mas (Producer, RT Features), Erica Motley (Acquisition Consultant, Sonar Entertainment), Francesca Orsi (Senior Vice President, Drama Programming, HBO) and Sarah Timberman (Producer and Principle, Timberman-Beverly Productions).
The Sundance Institute Episodic Story Initiative and Lab is made possible by Founding Supporters Lyn & Norman Lear; Leadership Supporters A&E, Netflix, SundanceTV, and Time Warner Foundation/HBO; Discovery Supporters Cindy and Alan Horn, RT Features, and Sonar Entertainment; and Supporter BBC America who provide financial and advisory resources to the Lab and its artists.
Artists and projects selected for the 2015 Episodic Story Lab are:
12 Miles South
By Michael Krikorian
After a gang killing goes wrong, Los Angeles faces a resurgence of violence that threatens to unravel the city's fragile peace. In 12 Miles South, a cop, a reporter and a gang leader on death row find their agendas dangerously entwined as they deal with the fallout.
Michael Krikorian is a veteran Los Angeles crime reporter and the author of the critically acclaimed novel Southside. Born in Chinatown and raised in Gardena, Krikorian was a writer for the Los Angeles Times for 11 years. Krikorian has had three personal essays published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine's Lives page. He continues to report about L.A. street gangs on his website Krikorian Writes.
Crude
By John Lopez
In Crude, a young mother desperate to sustain her family's existence leaves them behind to pursue a steady job in a North Dakota oil boomtown. A brutal murder on the outskirts of town sets a chain of events in motion that thrusts her into the middle of a war between a drug cartel, a Native American gang, and an overtaxed local sheriff.
John Lopez, a Los Angeles native, has been a regular contributor to Grantland's Hollywood Prospectus, Vanity Fair's Little Gold Men, GQ and the Huffington Post. Most recently he directed segments for NBC's 2014 Actor's Showcase and served as associate producer on Hossein Amini's film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Two Faces of January.
Degenerates
By Christianne Hedtke
In 1939 Paris, bohemian Jewish heiress Peggy Guggenheim sets out to establish the first museum dedicated to the art of her time - mischievous, radical Surrealism. As Hitler expands his assault on Europe and wages war on so-called degenerate art, Peggy is torn between helping these endangered artists escape and rescuing the art itself.
Christianne Hedtke is a Los Angeles-based screenwriter. She was born and raised in Minnesota, and studied film and art at the University of Denver. Prior to her time in LA, Hedtke developed original content for Nickelodeon in New York, and has spent over a decade on staff at the Telluride Film Festival. She is a founding member of the Greenpoint Writers Group, and a contributor to MovieMaker Magazine.
Hell or High Water
By Maria Melnik
Hell or High Water takes place during the five-year construction of the Hoover Dam at the height of the Great Depression. Part Western, part political dystopia, part steampunk clash of primordial rock and radical technology, it tells the story of the men and women who lived and died
