-- Park City, UT The Sundance Institute announced today 16 writers invited to develop 12 original projects at the 2022 Screenwriters Lab, which will be hosted online from January 15-18. The Fellows were selected from 3,200 submissions to further develop their scripts with the guidance of accomplished advisors, some of whom are alumni of the Screenwriters Lab themselves. The 2022 lab wil take place under the leadership of Michelle Satter (Founding Senior Director, Sundance Institute's Artist Programs) and Ilyse McKimmie (the Feature Film Program's Deputy Director), alongside Creative Advisors: Scott Frank (Artistic Director), Karim A nouz, Linda Yvette Chavez, Carlos Cuaron, Phil Hay, Marielle Heller, Amanda Idoko, Jenny Lumet, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Doug McGrath, Walter Mosley, Jessie Nelson, Jose Rivera, Eric Roth, Dana Stevens, Veena Sud, Chris Terrio, and Tyger Williams. One of the highlights for us every January is gathering a new and uniquely talented group of storytellers at our annual Screenwriters Lab. It's especially exciting to be together again where our Advisors and writing fellows will spend four days in our immersive lab online in intensive story meetings, craft workshops, and creative conversations, as the Fellows begin their cycle of year-round support. said Michelle Satter. These sixteen writers, selected for their vision and distinctive voices, will form a lifelong community of filmmakers, and we're thrilled to see the outcomes of the collaboration between the Lab Fellows and their mentors for years to come.
For 40 years, the Feature Film Program (FFP) Labs have supported and championed an exciting and ground-breaking array of independent filmmakers including Tatiana Huezo (Prayers for the Stolen [Noche de Fuego]), Lyle Corbine Jr. (Wild Indian), Radha Blank (The 40-Year-Old Version), Lulu Wang (The Farewell), Chloe Zhao (Songs My Brother Taught Me), Eliza Hittman (Beach Rats), Marielle Heller (Diary of a Teenage Girl), Fernando Frias de la Parra (I'm No Longer Here), Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre), Damien Chazelle (Whiplash), Edson Oda (Nine Days), Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station), Dee Rees (Pariah), Nia DaCosta (Little Woods), Ritesh Batra (The Lunchbox) and Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar (Beasts of the Southern Wild), among many others.
This year at the Sundance Film Festival, FFP Lab-supported projects include Nanny, premiering in U.S. Dramatic Competition, and The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future and Dos Estaciones, both premiering in World Dramatic Competition. In addition, screening in the Premieres section are FFP films God's Country and Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
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; NBCUniversal; Amazon Studios; Hollywood Foreign Press Association; Karen Lauder; Ray and Dagmar Dolby Family Fund; Sandra and Malcolm Berman Charitable Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; NHK/NHK Enterprises, Inc.; Kimberly Steward-K Period Media; SAGindie; Rosalie Swedlin and Robert Cort; Directors Guild of America; Deborah Reinisch and Michael Theodore Fund; Octavia Spencer; and Scott and Jennifer Frank.
The projects and fellows selected for the 2022 January Screenwriters Lab are:
Eliza McNitt (Writer/Director) with BLACK HOLE (U.S.A.): At a pivotal moment in both her career and her complicated relationship with her mother, an astrophysicist's universe unravels when she encounters a black hole of her own creation.
Eliza McNitt is a writer and director. An Emmy Awards Finalist and recipient of the VR Grand Prize at The Venice Film Festival, her work has appeared at Sundance, SXSW, AFI Fest, Cannes NEXT, Tribeca, Telluride, and Venice. She's currently writing and directing MARS 2080, an IMAX Experience with Imagine Entertainment.
Olive Nwosu (Writer/Director) with A Burial (Nigeria, U.K.): Faced with the sudden death of a visiting British dignitary, an older Nigerian politician becomes obsessed with giving the foreign stranger a proper burial. He embarks on a relentless quest across Nigeria that forces him to confront the choices he's made in his own life.
Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Olive Nwosu is a BAFTA-Pigott Scholar, Alex Sichel Fellow at Columbia University, and an African Promises' director selected by the Institut Fran ais. Nwosu's work is informed by the intersectional nature of her life across multiple continents and identities. Her mission is to tell urgent, cinematic, African stories.
Dina Amer (Co-writer/Director) and Omar Mullick (Co-writer) with Cain and Abel (France): The fates of two French-born Muslim Arabs born in the same neighborhood collide as they find themselves on opposite sides of the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack: one a police officer, the other a terrorist. Who are these men beneath their uniforms, and how many degrees of separation really exist between them?
Omar Mullick directed the feature non-fiction film These Birds Walk, which was theatrically distributed by Oscilloscope. He also co-wrote the screenplay for You Resemble Me which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2021. He is a documentary director of films and various series at Amazon, HBO and CNN
Dina Amer is an award-winning filmmaker. In her directorial debut, You Resemble Me, cultural and intergenerational trauma erupt in this story about two sisters on the outskirts of Paris. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was executive produced by Spike Lee, Spike Jonze, Riz Ahmed, and Alma Har'el.
Michael Le n (Co-writer/director) and Ashley Alvarez (Co-writer) with Crabs in a Barrel (U.S.A.): When her talentless frenemy is anointed as the future of Latinx voices, a struggling Latina writer sets out to sabotage this u
