Los Angeles, CA - Sundance Institute and Drishyam Films today announced the artists and creative advisors selected for the second Drishyam | Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab in Udaipur, India April 4-8. The Lab supports emerging filmmakers in India, as part of the Institute's sustained commitment to international artists, which in the last 25 years has included programs in Brazil, Mexico, Jordan, Turkey, Japan, Cuba, Israel and Central Europe.
Now in its second year, the four-day Lab is a creative and strategic partnership between Drishyam Films and Sundance Institute, and gives independent screenwriters the opportunity to work intensively on their feature film scripts in an environment that encourages innovation and creative risk-taking. The Lab is centered around one-on-one story sessions with creative advisors. Screenwriting fellows engage in an artistically rigorous process that offers lessons in craft, a fresh perspective on their work and a platform to fully realize their material.
Leading the Lab in India is Drishyam founder, Manish Mundra. He said, A beautiful heritage city in my hometown of Rajasthan, Udaipur forms an ideal writers retreat, and is the perfect environment for a diverse group of emerging writers and renowned mentors to have a refreshing and productive exchange. Our goal is that the six selected Indian projects, after undergoing a comprehensive mentoring process, will quickly move from script to screen and make their mark globally. All six projects harbor immense potential, and the success they go on to achieve and the distribution channels they open up for more independent Indian films will be the fittest tribute to this joint initiative, driven by passion and pure love for cinema.
Paul Federbush, International Director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, said, We are excited to collaborate with Drishyam Films for the second year of the Screenwriters Lab. This partnership allows us to continue discovering and developing new and exciting voices in India. With experimentation and exchange at the core of our work, we hope to inspire an exciting new generation of independent film.
Creative advisors for this year's Lab represent a diverse mix of Indian and international filmmakers, including: Thomas Bidegain (A Prophet, Dheepan, Rust and Bone), Pubali Choudhari (Kai Po Che!), Naomi Foner (Running on Empty, Losing Isaiah), Malia Scotch Marmo (Hook, Once Around, Good Morning Karachi), Rose Troche (Go Fish, The Safety of Objects, The L Word), , and Prasanna Vithanage (With You, Without You).
The Institute has enthusiastically supported independent cinema in India at all stages of production through its Screenwriters Labs in India and Utah, the Sundance Institute Global Filmmaking Award, as well as targeted post-production grants. Recently completed films supported by the Institute include: Ritesh Batra's The Lunchbox, winner of the Grand Rail d'Or at its premiere at Cannes, Shonali Bose's Margarita With A Straw, winner of the NETPAC award at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival and Masaan by writer-director Neeraj Ghaywan, winner of the FIPRESCI and Promising Debut Feature award in the Un Certain Regard at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
The Institute's longstanding international Labs offer targeted support to independent artists in countries around the world. Building on the Institute's renowned Lab model that encourages creative innovation and incorporates one-on-one project guidance from creative advisors, the Institute aims to work with local and regional partner organizations to identify independent artistic communities and movements to support, actively contributing to local capacity for development or production. After seeding Labs in Brazil, Mexico, Central Europe and around East Africa, the Institute currently hosts Labs in Jordan, Turkey, India, China, Japan and Morocco. The Institute also invites international filmmakers to participate in its signature Labs in the U.S.
The projects and fellows selected for the 2016 Drishyam | Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab are:
Nandita Das / Manto
The controversial writer Saadat Hasan Manto takes us through the glorious days of 1940s Bombay and Bollywood movie sets, to the partition of the Indian subcontinent, and his downward spiraling life in Lahore.
Nandita Das has acted in more than 40 films in 10 different languages. Her directorial debut,
Firaaq, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008. She was twice on the jury of Cannes Film Festival among others and was conferred the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters' by the French Government. Nandita is a strong advocate of social issues, a columnist and a former Chairperson of Children's Film Society.
Gaurav Bakshi / Reincarnation
A gun for hire needs to neutralize the threat posed by a delusional old man, hailed as Mahatma Gandhi's reincarnation, before the common masses enamoured by him rise up in rebellion against the corrupt regime.
After 15 years as a marketing professional, Gaurav Bakshi, an IIM-Bangalore graduate, left the corporate world to pursue his passion. Following a course for filmmaking at NYU, he worked as an Assistant Director with reputed directors including Dibaker Banerji (Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye) and Abhishek Chaubey (Ishqiya) and developed his skills further by making several short films. His short films have been selected and screened at leading film festivals such as the International Film Festival of India, the Indian Film Festivals in Chicago and Boston amongst others, and have garnered close to three million views on YouTube. He is currently in the process of preparing for his first feature-length film.
Batul Mukhtiar & Vivek Shah / Shame, Shame, Puppy Shame
Shame, Shame, Puppy Shame' is the story of a young girl, Seema, whose life unravels after she i
Most recent headlines
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
KPop Demon Hunters Stars Visit Berklee for Weeklong Celebration Andrew Choi and EJAE, who voiced the film's main characters and contributed to its soundtr...
17/12/2025
With the new season of Dancing with the Stars shimmering in the not-too-distant future this New Year, the celebrity and dancer pairings of the twelve couples ha...
16/12/2025
Hawkins has landed on Spotify, just in time for Stranger Things Season 5, Volume...
16/12/2025
Wherever you are, your favorite music and audio content should go seamlessly with you. That's why Spotify has partnered with NAVER Corp, Korea's leading...
16/12/2025
2025 Wrapped arrived bigger and bolder than ever. This year's experience is designed to be ultra personal and shareable, with new features like Wrapped Part...
16/12/2025
Three 12-kilowatt Advanced Electric Propulsion System thrusters, supplied by L3Harris Technologies, form the core of Gateway's propulsion system. Pictured i...
16/12/2025
The challenge facing America's defense industrial base is not just about speed - its about rebuilding the foundation that makes speed possible. Our nations ...
16/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
16/12/2025
SEVILLE, Spain Canal Sur, the public broadcasting service for Andalusia, Spain, has completed a total technology refresh based on Pebble's resilient, softwa...
16/12/2025
NEW YORK Teleprompting hardware provider Telescript International has acquired all software code and intellectual property previously owned by Telescript West. ...
16/12/2025
As cable operators face increased competition from 5G fixed wireless access providers, a new report from Ookla Research finds that T-Mobile is the FWA speed lea...
16/12/2025
Apple has announced a major upgrade to the Apple TV app for device owners outside the Apple ecosystem with news that the Apple TV app for Android now supports G...
16/12/2025
Space42 grows Direct-to-Device partner ecosystem through a Memorandum of Underst...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON Announces Release Date for Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2025 R...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON's Kyivstar Invests in Renewable Energy in Ukraine with Acq...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Emma Appleton, Fares Fares, Frida Gustavsson and Jakob Oftebro...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Docu-reality My Korean Boyfriend Gets a Trailer and Premiere D...
16/12/2025
Harmonic's XOS Advanced Media Processor Improves Streaming Video Quality and Boosts Viewer Engagement SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 16, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: ...
16/12/2025
RT Sport Awards 2025 live on RT One and RT Player at 8:05pm on Saturday 20 December.
On Saturday 20 December live on RT One and RT Player at the earlier t...
16/12/2025
Singer -songwriter Brian Kennedy has been announced as the final celebrity dance...
15/12/2025
Harlem Globetrotters Celebrate 100th Anniversary With New Brand Campaign From Th...
15/12/2025
Top L-R: La Tierra Del Valor (The Home of the Brave), Mangittatuarjuk (The Gnawe...
15/12/2025
L3Harris will leverage 15 years of experience supporting the E-4B Nightwatch and...
15/12/2025
CONWAY, Ark. In a notable example of how the loss of federal funding is forcing public stations to make massive cuts and operational changes, the statewide pub...
15/12/2025
BOULDER, Colo. Public Media Venture Group (PMVG), Venture Technologies Group (VTG), and WQED have completed a multipart agreement that they say will significant...
15/12/2025
Cape Town, November 13, 2025 - SES and International artist and humanitarian, Fo...
15/12/2025
Luxembourg, December 15, 2025 - SES, a leading space solutions company, and Abra Group launched fast and reliable multi-orbit inflight connectivity service on t...
15/12/2025
How Rivian s Design Puts Drivers First-And Why That Matters Published on Dec 15, 2025 Categories: Business Solutions
LinkedIn Corporate Communications
Sha...
15/12/2025
Space42 and Cobham Satcom completed the full range of advanced terminals for the...
15/12/2025
15 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan Delivers First Starlink Direct to Cel...
15/12/2025
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor finds himself the topic of year's cracker jokes
Oasis, David Harbour, Celebrity Traitors and Angela Rayner all feature in this y...
15/12/2025
Comscore Expands Cross-Platform Campaign Measurement to Include Audio and Social New capabilities strengthen cross-platform campaign reporting suite; CCR rebran...
15/12/2025
NVIDIA today announced it has acquired SchedMD - the leading developer of Slurm, an open-source workload management system for high-performance computing (HPC) ...
15/12/2025
RT .ie has reached one billion page views this year and is on track to finish 2025 2% ahead of last year. Average time spent on the site is up 3% on 2024, with ...
15/12/2025
Modern workflows showcase the endless possibilities of generative and agentic AI on PCs.
Of many, some examples include tuning a chatbot to handle product-supp...
13/12/2025
Powering Client Growth: Horizon Deepens Nielsen Partnership, Enabling More Effic...
13/12/2025
In a move that will help it offer more flexible and less costly programming options, YouTube TV has announced that it will be launching YouTube TV Plans with mo...
13/12/2025
SINGAPORE Magna Systems has designed, built and completed what is believed to be the first full UHD and IP-based OB truck in Southeast Asia for a Singapore medi...
12/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Everything You Need to Know for Next Week's Big Sho...
12/12/2025
Hailey Gates at the Atropia premiere (photo by George Pimentel / Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)...
12/12/2025
Last month, Spotify announced a new collaboration with the ATP Tour, the global governing body of men's professional tennis, aimed at bringing the next gene...
Los Angeles, CA - Sundance Institute and Drishyam Films today announced the artists and creative advisors selected for the second Drishyam | Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab in Udaipur, India April 4-8. The Lab supports emerging filmmakers in India, as part of the Institute's sustained commitment to international artists, which in the last 25 years has included programs in Brazil, Mexico, Jordan, Turkey, Japan, Cuba, Israel and Central Europe.
