Sundance Institute's 2020 Directors & Screenwriters Lab Fellows

Newly Expanded Advisor Roster Spans Filmmaking Disciplines

Los Angeles, CA -- 11 independent filmmakers developing 10 projects have been selected for the 2020 Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Labs, reimagined and expressed digitally this year on Sundance Co//ab. These Labs are at the heart of the nonprofit Institute's long-standing support for artists, and will connect curated selections of Fellows with Creative Advisors and Industry mentors across multiple disciplines.

At the Directors Lab (June 1-19th), filmmakers will participate in a rigorous schedule of advisor presentations, scene analysis sessions, directing exercises, one-on-one meetings, and -- new this year -- collaborative conversations across a wide range of industry disciplines, including casting, production design, film scoring, and producing. Immediately following, the Screenwriters Lab (June 22-25th) provides the opportunity to process the insight gained from the Directors Lab through one-on-one story sessions with screenwriter advisors, and find inspiration and guidance for continued development of their screenplays.

Under the leadership of Feature Film Program Founding Director Michelle Satter and Deputy Director Ilyse McKimmie, the Labs are part of a year-round continuum of customized support for Fellows, which can include creative mentorship, granting at critical stages, and tactical advice from program staff and industry professionals.

The group of creative advisors is made up of directors, cinematographers, editors, actors, and screenwriters including Miguel Arteta, Joan Darling, Rick Famuyiwa, Naomi Foner, John Gatins, Gyula Gazdag (Artistic Director, Directors Lab), Lesli Linka Glatter, Stephen Goldblatt, Keith Gordon, Susannah Grant, Randa Haines, Ed Harris, Karyn Kusama, Kasi Lemmons, Malia Scotch Marmo, Walter Mosley, Robert Redford, Nancy Richardson, Howard Rodman (Artistic Director, Screenwriters Lab), Elena Soarez, Joan Tewkesbury, Dylan Tichenor, Lynette Wallworth, Zo White, Tyger Williams, Erin Cressida Wilson, Doug Wright and Benh Zeitlin.

For the first time, the 2020 Directors Lab will include advisors across other areas of creative collaboration, including casting directors Jodi Angstreich, Eyde Belasco, Maribeth Fox and Richard Hicks, production designers Akin McKenzie, Beth Mickle and Inbal Weinberg, composers Peter Golub, Heather McIntosh and Mervyn Warren, and producers Mollye Asher, Mary Jane Skalski and Nina Yang Bongiovi.

The Sundance Institute Feature Film Program is supported by explore.org, a direct charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; Will & Jada Smith Family Foundation; Maja Kristin; Universal Filmed Entertainment Group; Amazon Studios; Hollywood Foreign Press Association; Karen Lauder; RT Features; Sandra and Malcolm Berman Charitable Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; Ray and Dagmar Dolby Family Fund; NHK/NHK Enterprises, Inc.; Comedy Central; John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; Kimberly Steward-K Period Media; SAGindie; Philip Fung-A3 Foundation; Directors Guild of America; Writers Guild of America West; Rosalie Swedlin and Robert Cort; and the Deborah Reinisch and Michael Theodore Fund.

Fellows and projects selected for the 2020 Directors Lab are:

Aftersun (United Kingdom/U.S.A.)

Charlotte Wells, writer/director

A woman reflects on shared joy and private melancholy in the final days she spent with her father, filling in the gaps of banal home-video footage captured on holiday at a Turkish seaside resort twenty years earlier.

Charlotte Wells is a Scottish filmmaker based in Brooklyn. She is a graduate of the MBA/MFA program at NYU, where she was supported by BAFTA New York and Los Angeles. Wells was featured in Filmmaker Magazine's 25 Faces of Independent Film in 2018 and was a fellow at the 2020 Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab.

Birth/Rebirth (U.S.A.)

Laura Moss, co-writer/director

Brendan O'Brien, co-writer

In this all-female adaptation of the Frankenstein story, a grieving maternity nurse and an obsessive morgue technician are unexpectedly bound together in a quest to re-animate a deceased child.

Laura Moss is a filmmaker from New York City whose work has screened at MoMA, Tribeca, Rotterdam and SXSW. She was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2017 and her short film, Fry Day, which is currently available on the Criterion Channel, premiered at SXSW in 2017. Her latest project, the pilot of the sci-fi/comedy series neurotica, starring Karen Gillan and Jon Bass, premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and won Best Director for a Comedy Pilot at Seriesfest. Moss is a 2020 Women at Sundance | Adobe Fellow.

Brendan OBrien is a writer and producer whose films have screened at SXSW, Rotterdam, Tribeca, and Clermont-Ferrand. His work has been included in the London Review of Books and the Zombie Movie Encyclopedia.

Chalino (U.S.A.)

Jesus Celaya, writer/director

The true story of Chalino Sanchez, the originator of the narcocorrido, who immigrated from Sinaloa to Los Angeles in the early 1990s and started a musical revolution with his songs about the lives of Mexican outlaws.

Jesus Celaya is a Mexican American genre writer and director raised between the mountains of Washington State and the deserts of Sonora, Mexico. He finally settled in Los Angeles for film school, where he now resides. Celaya's work has placed in several prominent screenwriting contests and he was a fellow at the 2020 Sundance Screenwriters Lab. He is currently developing several projects that marry his love of history and folklore with his passion for cinema. Celaya is the recipient of the 2020 Sundance Institute Latinx Fellowship.

Chinks (U.S.A.)

Bing Liu, writer/director

A Chinese American teenager discovers his voice by making skate videos in

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