Eleven Projects to Be Developed at Annual January Screenwriters Lab; Nine Projects to Be Supported at Screenwriters Intensive in March PARK CITY, UTAH, January 16, 2025 - Today the nonprofit Sundance Institute announced the fellows selected for the 2026 Screenwriters Lab and Screenwriters Intensive programs, which foster creativity and bold risk-taking, empower emerging voices, and support the development and launch of their first and second features. Selected from over 3,800 submissions, the 11 Screenwriters Lab fellows will convene in a connected community to work under the guidance of esteemed advisors to develop their original scripts. The Screenwriters Lab will take place from January 17-21 at the Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah, where the Sundance Institute labs originated in 1981. This year's lab is being held in celebration of the mission and legacy of founder Robert Redford.
The lab will be led by Michelle Satter (Founding Senior Director, Sundance Institute's Artist Programs) and Ilyse McKimmie (Deputy Director, Feature Film Program), with artistic director Jessie Nelson and creative advisors Michael Arndt, Scott Z. Burns, Linda Yvette Ch vez, Scott Frank, Phil Hay, Barry Jenkins, Meg LeFauve, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Nicole Perlman, Howard A. Rodman, Dana Stevens, Lulu Wang, Virgil Williams, and Doug Wright.
We're excited to champion this new cohort of bold filmmakers developing their original stories in our January Screenwriters Lab, said Michelle Satter, Founding Senior Director, Sundance Institute's Artist Programs. These 11 fellows will hone their screenwriting skills while immersed in the collaborative creative community we envisioned and established to sustain the future of independent filmmakers. Following the lab, we are fully committed to supporting their journey from script to screen, ensuring that their powerful, human stories in all genres are celebrated and connect with audiences around the world.
The Screenwriters Intensive will be held March 5-6 online, where 13 writers across nine projects will develop their first fiction features. Alumni of the Screenwriters Intensive include Tory Kamen (Eleanor the Great), Reinaldo Marcus Green (Monsters and Men), Roger Ross Williams (Cassandro), Laurel Parmet (The Starling Girl), and Vuk Lungulov-Klotz (Mutt).
The artists and projects included in this year's Screenwriters Intensive comprise an impressively wide range of singular perspectives and storytelling styles, said Ilyse McKimmie, Deputy Director of the Feature Film Program. What they have in common is unforgettable cinematic vision, and we couldn't be more excited to support them every step of the way on the journey of bringing their films to life.
For over four decades, the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program (FFP) labs have supported and championed an exciting and groundbreaking array of independent filmmakers. Four notable filmmakers who wrote and directed films released in 2025 developed their debut features at the Feature Film Labs: Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another), Ryan Coogler (Sinners), Chlo Zhao (Hamnet), and Nia DaCosta (Hedda). Additionally, Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein) developed his second feature at the FFP's first Screenwriters Lab in Mexico. Other FFP alumni include The Daniels (Swiss Army Man), Sean Wang (D di ( )), A.V. Rockwell (A Thousand and One), Charlotte Wells (Aftersun), Nikyatu Jusu (Nanny), Sterlin Harjo (Four Sheets to the Wind), Radha Blank (The 40-Year-Old Version), Eliza Hittman (Beach Rats), Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl), Walter Salles (Central Station), Dee Rees (Pariah), Robert Eggers (The Witch), Ritesh Batra (The Lunchbox), Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball), Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know), and Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs), among many others.
Five projects supported by the Feature Film Program will premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival: Beth de Ara jo's Josephine, Ramzi Bashour's Hot Water, Suzanne Andrews Correa's The Huntress (La Cazadora), Olive Nwosu's LADY, and Walter Thompson-Hern ndez's If I Go Will They Miss Me. In addition, FFP alumni premiering new work in this year's Festival include Gregg Araki, Alex Huston Fischer, and Nicole Holofcener, and two lab-supported films, Half Nelson and Mysterious Skin, are screening in the Park City Legacy section. Feature Film Program-supported films that have premiered internationally in the past year include Hasan Hadi's The President's Cake (winner, Cam ra d'Or and Directors Fortnight Audience Award at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival; Iraq's Academy Award submission) and Diego C spedes' The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo (winner, Un Certain Regard prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival; Chile's Academy Award submission.)
The Sundance Institute Feature Film Program is supported by Rolex, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY, Peter H. Friedland, Salman Al-Rashid, The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), United Airlines, Big Newport Studios, NBCUniversal, Ray and Dagmar Dolby Fund, Scott and Jennifer Frank, Golden Globe Foundation, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), K Period Media Foundation, Blumhouse, Steward Family Foundation, Daniel Crown, SAGIndie, Spotlight on San Francisco, Rosalie Swedlin and Robert Cort, Karen and Ian Calderon, River Road Entertainment, and the Deborah Reinisch & Michael Theodore Fund. Legacy support provided by explore.org, a direct charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation.
The projects selected for the 2026 January Screenwriters Lab and the artists attending are:
Sarah Friedland (Writer-director) with The Queue (U.S.A.): Based on the 1983 novel by Vladimir Sorokin, The Queue is an absurd, picaresque fable. Set acro
