Los Angeles, CA - Fifteen screenwriters will convene to advance their independent projects at Sundance Institute's January Screenwriters Lab, taking place at the Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah, from January 17-22, 2020. At the Lab, the screenwriters will immerse themselves in a rigorous and holistic creative process, working to further develop their scripts with the mentorship of accomplished Creative Advisors. The January Screenwriters Lab has been created and organized under the leadership of Sundance Institutes Feature Film Program Founding Director Michelle Satter and Deputy Director Ilyse McKimmie. The team of Creative Advisors includes Artistic Director Scott Frank, Michael Arndt, Suha Arraf, Ritesh Batra, Andrea Berloff, D.V. DeVincentis, Gonzalo Maza, Doug McGrath, Walter Mosley, Nicole Perlman, Howard Rodman, Susan Shilliday, Zach Sklar, Dana Stevens, Joan Tewkesbury, Bill Wheeler, and Tyger Williams.
We're so excited to welcome this singular and bold group of artists to our January Screenwriters Lab, said Satter. Our program provides a safe and protected space for writers to be rigorous in their creative process as they develop new work that's a true reflection of their unique voice and power as storytellers. Our Labs are the beginning of a long-term commitment to these writer/directors, who we will continue to advance with a robust, ongoing suite of customized support.
Current award-winning films supported by the Feature Film Program (FFP) Labs include Lulu Wang's The Farewell, Laure de Clermont Tonnere's The Mustang, and Joe Talbot's The Last Black Man in San Francisco. Ten films supported by the Feature Film Program will premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. In U.S. Dramatic Competition, those films include The 40-Year-Old Version, written and directed by Radha Blank; Farewell Amor, written and directed by Ekwa Msangi; Miss Juneteenth, written and directed by Channing Godfrey Peoples; Nine Days, written and directed by Edson Oda; and Save Yourselves!, co-written and co-directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson. The World Cinema Dramatic Competition includes the FFP-supported films Cuties, written and directed by Ma mouna Doucour , and Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness, written and directed by Massoud Bakhshi. In addition, the Midnight section features His House, written and directed by Remi Weekes; the NEXT section includes The Mountains Are a Dream That Call to Me, written and directed by Cedric Cheung-Lau; and Wendy, co-written by Benh and Eliza Zeitlin and directed by Benh Zeitlin, will screen in the Premieres section.
Alumni writer/directors with new films premiering at the Festival include Miranda July, Sean Durkin, Rodrigo Garcia, Sara Colangelo, Braden King, Eliza Hittman, Julie Taymor and Dee Rees.
The projects and fellows selected for the 2020 January Screenwriters Lab are:
Aftersun (United Kingdom/U.S.A.)
Charlotte Wells (writer/director)
A young father and his 11-year-old daughter have impossible expectations of themselves and each other on a week's holiday at a resort in the Mediterranean, forcing them to confront the disconnect between who they are as a family and who they are apart.
Charlotte Charlie Wells is a Scottish filmmaker based in New York. Her first short film, Tuesday, was nominated for a London Critics' Circle Award, two BAFTA Scotland New Talent Awards, and won special mention at the Glasgow Short Film Festival. Her second short film, Laps, won awards at the Sundance Film Festival and SXSW, screened online as a Vimeo Staff Pick Premiere, and was featured on Short of the Week, Topic, and Nowness. Wells' most recent short, Blue Christmas, premiered at TIFF, screened at the Sundance Film Festival, and won awards at festivals in the US and UK. She is a graduate of the MBA/MFA dual-degree program at NYU and was featured in Filmmaker Magazine's 25 Faces of Independent Film 2018.
Birth/Rebirth (U.S.A.)
Laura Moss (co-writer/director) and Brendan O'Brien (co-writer)
In this all-female reimagining of the Frankenstein story, a grieving maternity nurse and an obsessive morgue technician are unexpectedly bound together in a quest to successfully 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- /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.
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)
Chalino tells 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. Recipient of the Sundance Institute Latinx Fellowship.
Jesus Celaya is a Mexican American genre writer 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 comes from a storytelling family born of a storytelling culture, marrying his love of history and folklore with his passion for cinema.
Chink (U.S.A.)
Bing Liu (writer/director)
An Asian American teen raised in a volatile household wrestles with complex familial relationships while carving his own path toward independence and self-worth. Recipient of the
