Sundance Institute 2026 Screenwriters Lab & Intensive Fellows Announced
- 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...
- 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...
- "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...
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 Chávez, 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 autonomous 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 (M
The Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program (FFP) has played a crucial role in supporting independent filmmakers for nearly four decades, providing resources and mentorship to develop their projects. Many notable directors have participated in the program, including Marielle Heller (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 certainly 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 Araújo’s Josephine, Ramzi Bashour’s Hot Water, Suzanne Andrews Correa’s The Huntress (La Cazadora), Olive Nwosu’s LADY, and Walter Thompson-Hernández’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, Caméra d’Or and Directors Fortnight Audience Award at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival; Iraq’s Academy Award submission) and Diego Céspedes’ 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:
Pecaut (Writer-director) with The Terrible Child (Canada): The terrible Child follows 16-year-old Augusta Goodman over a period of four months in her hometown of Toronto in 2009. Gussie’s desire to be a normal teenager is challenged by her dawning sexuality and her family as they cope with the end of her father’s long-term battle with cancer.
Bec Pecaut is a transmasc filmmaker from Toronto. Their debut short film, Are You Scared to Be yourself Because You Think That You Might Fail? (2024), had its domestic premiere at TIFF ’24, where it won the Short Cuts Award for Best Canadian Film, and its international premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
Joanna Rothkopf (Writer-director) with Attachment (a.k.a. Bluey is the Warmest Color) (U.S.A.): A mother becomes dangerously obsessed with a wildly popular children’s entertainer in this arch erotic thriller. It’s Fatal Attraction meets All Fours meets Ms. Rachel. Somehow.
Joanna Rothkopf is a writer and filmmaker living in Brooklyn.Sence 2019, she has worked as a senior writer on HBO’s Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, for which she has won multiple Emmy and WGA Awards. Her short film Pet Store, which she directed and produced, played festivals in 2024.Philip thompson (Writer-director) with Dance Monkey Dance (U.S.A.): Told through TV clips, voicemails, and personal recordings, this fictional found-footage documentary follows 2000s Black comedian Wesley Harris, whose fame, built on stereotypes for white audiences, warps his sense of self and exposes the media’s praise as a form of control.
Philip Thompson is a filmmaker from New england, based in Brooklyn, who was included as one of Filmmaker magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” His work investigates popular media’s influence on culture and the one-sided “looking” relationship between audiences and image subjects.
George Watsky (Writer-director) with yellowwood (U.S.A.): Zoe and Jordie, a couple who never wan“`html
BAOBAO, screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024. BAOBAO is her feature debut.
The following artists and projects have been selected for the 2026 Screenwriters Intensive:
Nicole Daddona and Adam Wilder (Co-writers/Co-directors) with CACS (U.S.A.): Two cacti uproot from their home in the desert and experience the trappings of human life in a fading small town.
Nicole Daddona is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, actress, and musician. The creator of cult-favorite brand Magic Society and the glam-pop persona Friday, she builds immersive, offbeat, uncanny worlds – rich with humor, heart, and nostalgia – across film, fashion, and music.
Adam Wilder is an auteur director and writer whose shorts have screened at the Sundance Film Festival and SXSW and been featured as Vimeo Staff Picks and Short of the Week. He champions singular stories with idiosyncratic characters, sharp visuals, and a balance of absurdity and sincerity.
Julien Figueroa (Writer) with Hatepark (U.S.A.): In the year 2000, a sullen androgynous teen falls in with a group of skate punks after being misread as a boy.They spend the long Florida summer relishing their new boyhood – much needed fun as they cope with a new stepfamily and a shifting image of their father, whom they onc idolized.
Julien Figueroa is a comedian, trinket collector, and recent graduate from DePaul University’s Screenwriting MFA. There, he studied comedic storytelling and improv with The Second City. He writes about black sheep in small southern towns and coming-of-age stories for burnt-out 20-somethings.
Allison Janae Hamilton (Writer-director) with Floridaland (U.S.A.): In early-2000s North Florida, a college student with an empathic gift drifts between campus life and her family’s fading casino. As buried tensions and spiritual inheritances surface, an unexpected occurrence forces a reckoning with belonging, legacy, and the dreamlike landscape that binds them.
Writer-director Allison Janae Hamilton is known for her mythic explorations of landscape and Americana. She has presented work at MoMA, MASS MoCA, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and BlackStar. Her short film Wacissa was acquired by the Smithsonian.She holds an MFA from Columbia and a Ph.D. from NYU.
Gulet Isse (Writer-director) with Samina Saifee holds a dual degree from NYU Tisch and Stern, where she studied film and business. She is a 2024 Sundance Institute Ignite fellow and a Sundance Institute and Islamic Scholarship Fund fellow. Her latest short, Ayat, stars Ramy‘s Laith nakli, and she recently wrapped her first documentary short, mango Man, set in India.
Sylvie Weber (Writer-director) and Anouk Shad (Writer-producer) with Río Masacre (Austria, Dominican Republic): Sent from Austria to the Dominican-Haitian border, 16-year-old Rio grows close to a sharp-witted local girl and is drawn into a world of cockfights and ancestral ghosts. As the Río Masacre’s legacy resurfaces,he must confront buried family wounds and decide where he belongs.
Sylvie Weber is a German Dominican filmmaker exploring belonging, history, and mysticism through a poetic, surreal lens. Her films have screened at BlackStar, BAM, and LA Film Forum. She was a 2025 indeed/Hillman Grad Rising Voices fellow and part of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s 2023 Creators Lab.
Anouk Shad is an Austrian writer and producer with South Sudanese roots. She is the founder of the production company Ripe and the BIPOC film network Gewächshaus, committed to globally resonant storytelling and to building infrastructures that empower independent voices.
Sundance Institute
As a champion and curator of independent stories, the nonprofit Sundance Institute provides and preserves the space for artists across storytelling media to create and thrive. Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, the Institute’s signature labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, t
The Sundance Institute Celebrates 40 Years of independent Storytelling
The Sundance Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting independent filmmakers, marked its 40th anniversary in 2026. Founded by Robert Redford and Sterling Van Wagenen in 1986, the Institute has played a pivotal role in launching the careers of numerous prominent directors and fostering a vibrant independent film community.
The institute’s impact extends beyond its renowned Sundance Film Festival.It operates year-round artist programs designed to nurture emerging talent. These programs have supported filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson, Gregg Araki, Darren Aronofsky, Lisa Cholodenko, Nia DaCosta, Ryan Coogler, and The Daniels early in their careers.
Sundance’s influence is also visible in the films it has championed. Notable works nurtured by the Institute include RBG,Requiem for a Dream,Reservoir Dogs,Sin Nombre,Sorry to Bother You,Strong island,Summer of Soul (…Or,When the Revolution Coudl Not be Televised),Swiss Army Man,A Thousand and One,Top of the Lake,Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,and Zola.
The Sundance Institute continues to adapt to the evolving landscape of filmmaking, providing resources and opportunities for storytellers across various platforms. more data about the Institute and its programs can be found on their official website: https://www.sundance.org/.