December 8th, 2020, Los Angeles, California - In collaboration with IllumiNative and Sundance Institute, The Black List today announced the nine scripts selected for the inaugural Indigneous List, highlighting the very best Indigenous film and television writers living and working within the United States.
Eligible writers were able to submit their scripts for consideration via blcklst.com from June 24th through September 27th, 2020. Both features and pilots were selected for the first Indigenous List, and all scripts come from Indigenous film artists working within the United States.
Requirements for selection on the 2020 Indigenous List are below:
Indigenous film artists working in the U.S. are eligible to submit scripts to this partnership
Any kind of story is eligible and will be considered
Feature film scripts, half-hour scripts and one-hour episodic scripts will be considered for this partnership - no webseries, please
All levels of experience considered for submitting writers
Scripts submitted should be as free from attachments as possible
Submitting writers should be prepared to answer the following question: What is your Tribal Nation/First Nation? Please describe how your Native culture has supported your ideas and process as a screenwriter?
Here are the scripts selected for the 2020 Indigenous List, in alphabetical order:
BUNKER BOSS by Joey Clift
After a nuclear war forces most of humanity into underground bunkers, a total loser must become the inspirational leader of a bunker known to execute any leader that drops below a 60% approval rating. (Animated)
FANCY DANCE by Erica Tremblay & Miciana Alise
Following the disappearance of her sister, a Native American hustler kidnaps her niece from her white grandparents and sets out for the state powwow in the hopes of keeping what's left of their family intact.
FIREBIRD by Kathyn Machi
After earning the chance of a lifetime to dance her dream ballet in France, a talented teenage Cherokee ballerina and her cowboy father search for her estranged mother, who left them years ago to chase her own dreams abroad.
LORDS OF THE EARTH by Blackhorse Lowe
LORDS OF THE EARTH is about two star-crossed lovers searching for each other amidst the backdrop of a harsh and violent New Mexico territory in 1863. In the film, Hastiin Hashke' is a Navajo man who longs to be reunited with his wife, Taa'deezbaa, who was abducted into slavery.
MOLOKA'I BOUND by Alika Maikau
After several years in prison, Kainoa wants nothing more than to reestablish a relationship with his son and Hawaiian heritage, but old friends and new circumstances threaten to derail his path.
POI DOGS by Bryson Chun
When a small-town, high-end Hawai'i dog groomer learns that a hit was put on her on the Dark Web, she has to race to find the culprit among her friends and family before its too late.
THE BLIND by Sterlin Harjo
When the teenage son of a Native American hunter is murdered by a group of backwoods drug dealers, the mourning father decides to exact revenge on those responsible for his death and the corruption in their small town.
THE WILDEST WEST by Blake Pickens
Riley works as a theme park attendant at Seven Flags Over Texas, a miserable establishment full of tyrannical customers that make obscene demands. But when a spot opens up to play Geronimo in the parks annual Wild West Show, he sees an opportunity to stop hawking hot dogs and become closer to his real goal of becoming an actor.
TINDER ON THE REZ by Brooke Swaney & Angela Tucker
Just because you are 35 and living back on the Rez with your parents, your brother and his two kids, doesn't mean you can't get laid, right? Don't ask Lenny. It's a sensitive topic.
Script selections were announced today, with the participating organizations saying the below about the first year of partnership for the Indigenous List:
IllumiNative is proud to partner with the Sundance Indigenous Program and The Black List to showcase the immense talent of Native writers, said Crystal Echo Hawk (Pawnee), Founder and Executive Director of IllumiNative. These writers, and the more than 6 dozen other scripts submitted during this process, shows the growing talent, diversity and strength of Indigenous storytellers. Now more than ever, it's important that we continue to support opportunities for Indigenous peoples to shape, author, and control our own narrative- these scripts show the depth and range of stories Native writers are creating. Our research shows that there is a strong demand among audiences for authentic Native stories and content. We are hopeful that 2021 will represent a groundbreaking year for Native representation. We look forward to continuing this work and seeing these stories on our screens.
The Sundance Institute's Indigenous Program team and I congratulate these extraordinary storytellers whose scripts have been selected for the Inaugural Indigenous List - they offer not only some of the most unique voices of Indigenous film and television writing, but also offer a glimpse of what our American popular culture landscape will be shaped like when Indigenous voices are recognized and included said Indigenous Program Director N. Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne/Mescalero Apache). These scripts represent the breadth of authenticity that Indigenous writers bring to their work and are a testament to the craft and creativity that happens when Indigenous voices tell their own stories. We are proud to have partnered with The Black List and IllumiNative to elevate these Indigenous writers and we can't wait until these stories make it to screens for audiences everywhere.
I've known Bird Runningwater since my earliest days in the industry and have, since then, admired the consistent, heroic work that he's done on behalf of storytell
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
December 8th, 2020, Los Angeles, California - In collaboration with IllumiNative and Sundance Institute, The Black List today announced the nine scripts selected for the inaugural Indigneous List, highlighting the very best Indigenous film and television writers living and working within the United States. 
