Sundance Institute, the nonprofit film organization behind the Sundance Film Festival and labs and The Walt Disney Company, announced the first cohort of the Sundance Institute | The Walt Disney Company Muslim Artist Fellowship. This fellowship program aims to provide four Muslim artists with comprehensive creative and tactical support, enabling them to cultivate their skills and empowering them to advance within the industry. The Fellowship offers an immersive, year-round professional development experience, fostering a positive impact on film and television.
Disney's support of the Muslim Artist Fellowship is part of Disney Future Storytellers, an initiative to deliver on the Company's commitment to empower the next generation of storytellers.
We are honored to join forces with the Sundance Institute to launch the Muslim Artist Fellowship - an initiative that reflects our shared dedication to fostering the next generation of filmmakers, expressed Mahin Ibrahim, Director of Creative Talent Pathways, Representation & Inclusion Strategies at Disney. Through this collaborative effort, we aim to amplify the diverse perspectives of these artists while empowering them to propel their careers and craft compelling narratives that resonate with audiences worldwide.
As part of this initiative, each selected artist is granted an unrestricted grant of $15,000, facilitating the advancement of their individual projects. Additionally, the fellowship offers personalized support from the Institute, tailored to the unique goals of each artist.
As a Sundance Institute grantee, the fellowship also extends exclusive opportunities for networking and community-building events, allowing artists to connect with fellow creatives and industry professionals.
Our partnership with The Walt Disney Company will help further opportunities to uplift Muslim artists and their narratives. Supporting these artists through a bespoke fellowship will not only elevate Muslim representation but also bring more visibility to their stories, said Hajnal Molnar-Szakacs, Sundance Institute's Director of Artist Accelerator and Women at Sundance Programs. We're thrilled to launch this new initiative to provide support to these four talented artists-Kamau Bilal, Razi Jafri, Sarah Mokh, and Jumai Yusuf-through this fellowship.
Meet the fellows selected for the Sundance Institute | The Walt Disney Company Muslim Artist Fellowship:
Kamau Bilal
About the Artist: Kamau Bilal is a Black American filmmaker based in the Midwest. His short film Baby Brother premiered at Sundance in 2018 and lives on the website of The New York Times. In 2018 he was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Film. Brick Thieves is his first feature.
Project: Brick Thieves is a feature film. When William's only son and business partner decide to leave their antiquated demolition business, William finds himself knee-deep in the black-market brick theft world to keep his family together.
Razi Jafri
About the Artist: Razi Jafri is a documentary filmmaker. His film, Hamtramck, USA, premiered at SXSW and aired on PBS. Recently, Razi produced Three Chaplains, which aired on PBS in Fall 2023. He is an alumnus of the Sundance Producing Fellowship and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan.
Project: Sanctuary, Purgatory is a documentary feature film that follows a refugee living in South Korea after fleeing the Yemeni civil war as he struggles to reunite with his family in the US, who are living in Michigan.
Sarah Mokh
About the Artist: Sarah Mokh is a writer and director interested in what our stories reveal about our deepest beliefs. She is a graduate of Harvard College and currently a graduate student at NYU. Her screenplays have been supported or recognized by the Sundance Institute, Film Independent, the Academy Nicholl Fellowship, and others.
Project: Diary of a Muslim Cynic tells the story of a woman desperate to escape her Midwest small-town life after a tragedy; a depressed teen's pursuits of love and big-city dreams are upended by the ghosts of her past and mystical encounters.
Jumai Yusuf
About the Artist: Jumai Yusuf is a director, writer, producer, and a Muslim, Nigerian immigrant who is passionate about telling BIPOC genre stories. Her screenwriting has been supported by MPAC Hollywood and the Black List. She has a B.A. in Neurobiology from Harvard and an MFA from USC.
Project: Layla and the Starship Afrotopia, follows Layla, a shy Black Muslim girl who discovers the power to create wormholes; she's whisked away from her small town to Afrotopia, a spaceship searching for a home planet. This is an afrofuturist coming-of-age animated series. The target audience is Family & Older Children (like She-Ra and the Princesses of Power ).
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
28/11/2025
Nadia Fall attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Brides at the Egyptian Theatre on January 24, 2025, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Donyale West/...
28/11/2025
It's easy to ignore those little red update available badges. But when it ...
28/11/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 18, 2025 ...
28/11/2025
The Professional Fighters League is looking to super-serve fans of mixed martial...
28/11/2025
Fubo has released in beta on select Roku devices a new feature that lets users display up to four simultaneous streams at once....
28/11/2025
The WNBA playoffs and Week 4 of the NFL regular season highlight the list of live sports events airing on television this weekend....
28/11/2025
The 32nd class of honorees to the B+C Hall of Fame took to the stage at New York's Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 26 for a gala induction event. Click below...
28/11/2025
We hold in our hands the very last Next Text for Next TV, the weekly back-and-fo...
28/11/2025
DirecTV said it made a deal with EchoStar to buy EchoStar's video businesses, including satellite-TV provider Dish TV and virtual MVPD Sling TV, for $1 plus...
28/11/2025
The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame, the premier industry event paying tribute to the influencers, innovators and shining lights of broadcast, cable and streami...
28/11/2025
Friday 28 November 2025
Sky Sports x Slawn drop limited-edition football jersey...
28/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz shows resilience in a challenging environment, revenue exceeds t...
28/11/2025
Unwrapped: The Toy Show Appeal - airing this Sunday on RT One and RT Player- s...
27/11/2025
LONDON Vizrt has added several AI-driven advanced features offering improved speed, intelligence and accuracy in the newest version of its media asset managemen...
27/11/2025
Prime Video has launched AI-powered video season recaps in a beta version for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S., a move Amazon is callin...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders Marks a Grand...
27/11/2025
27 Nov 2025
GSMA brings M360 Eurasia 2026 to Samarkand in partnership with VEON...
27/11/2025
Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle star in the gripping six-part Sky Original from Acad...
27/11/2025
Thursday 27 November 2025
Sky Arts Reveals the Nation's Greatest Basslines - and Queen Reign Supreme
The UK's most iconic basslines have been revealed...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things 5': Prepare for One Last Adventure With O...
27/11/2025
The media industry has a paradox at its core. It's an industry built on light, color and imagination, yet behind the scenes, it's powered by one of the ...
27/11/2025
Rating reflects rating progress across areas including policies, diversity & inclusion, health & safety and Net Zero leadership
Winchester, UK, 27 November 202...
27/11/2025
What are the industry standards for Retail Media? Kathryn explains that certification is based on the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards and the IAB ...
27/11/2025
World champion boxer and Irish sporting icon Katie Taylor will be in studio this...
27/11/2025
Roblox, one of the world's most popular online gaming platforms for primary ...
27/11/2025
Black Friday is leveling up. Get ready to score one of the biggest deals of the season - 50% off the first three months of a new GeForce NOW Ultimate membership...
26/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Prime Video EP Mike Muriano Previews Massive Black Friday Slate Fe...
26/11/2025
A cinematic snow sculpture at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Randall Michelson...
26/11/2025
Book podcasts are booming. On Spotify, you'll find everything from celebrity book clubs to deep dives with bestselling authors. And in markets where audiobo...
26/11/2025
Mumbai, November 24, 2025: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, JioStar, in collab...
26/11/2025
LONDON Factual content producer ITN Productions has launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins....
26/11/2025
MIAMI TelevisaUnivision said it struck a new multiyear distribution agreement with YouTube TV that includes distribution of TelevisaUnivision's U.S. network...
26/11/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leader in software-defined data storage and data services, today announced the launch of the Atlas Corporate Creative Solution. This new Atl...
26/11/2025
Disguise, the industry-leading company powering the world's biggest live performances, is partnering with pioneering LED wall manufacturer DVS to give atten...
26/11/2025
HighField AI, the pioneer in agentic and multimodal automation for broadcast and media production, today announced the expansion of its global channel partner n...
26/11/2025
As high-stakes Premier League fixtures approach and additional premium content launches, with MONO positioning themselves to dominate Thailand's sports stre...
26/11/2025
Hosting a wide variety of events from high-intensity NHL games to complex live music concerts and major entertainment productions, Montreal's 21,000 capacit...
26/11/2025
Vizrt, the leader in live production technology revolutionizing viewer engagement and experience, releases AI-driven advances focusing on speed, intelligence, a...
26/11/2025
ITN Productions, an award-winning factual content producer, today launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins. Responsible for delivering a leading...
26/11/2025
Ikegami reports ongoing advances throughout 2025 in developing and delivering coordinated television production solutions that maximize quality, versatility and...
26/11/2025
Following the Nov. 21 blackout of NBCUniversal channels on Fubo, the two sides have traded barbs about their inability to reach a new carriage deal....
26/11/2025
LONDON As TV sports rights become increasingly important for both broadcasters and streamers, Ampere Analysis predicts global investment in the genre will surpa...
26/11/2025
LOS ANGELES Vubiquity said it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Media & Entertainment Competency as part of the AWS Partner Network (APN). This designa...
26/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau said it has entered into a consent decree with Comcast calling for the cable company t...
26/11/2025
Berklee Named to the Hollywood Reporters Top Music Schools List The publication highlights the college's screen scoring program, industry partnerships, and ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
Animated Series Love Through a Prism' Casts New Light on ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
NALIP Unveils Fifth Cohort of Director Incubator
Social Impact
26 November 2025
United States
Link copied to clipboard
The National Assoc...
26/11/2025
YouView Achieves Greenly Gold Certification for SustainabilityNov 26, 2025
YouView is proud to announce a Gold Certification award from Greenly for our perform...
Sundance Institute, the nonprofit film organization behind the Sundance Film Festival and labs and The Walt Disney Company, announced the first cohort of the Sundance Institute | The Walt Disney Company Muslim Artist Fellowship. This fellowship program aims to provide four Muslim artists with comprehensive creative and tactical support, enabling them to cultivate their skills and empowering them to advance within the industry. The Fellowship offers an immersive, year-round professional development experience, fostering a positive impact on film and television.
