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The Sundance Institute has revealed the fellows for the 2025 directors, screenwriters and Native labs. The Native lab begins in-person April 28 through May 3 in Santa Fe, N.M. while the directors lab returns for its 45th anniversary June 1 through 16 in Estes Park, Colo. The 2025 screenwriters lab will be held online from June 24 through 27, offering filmmakers an “Immersive environment to develop their projects and refine their artistic voice under the guidance of accomplished creative advisors,” according to a press release.

The 2025 Native lab fellows are: Jared Lank, (Mi’kmaq), Isabella Dionne Madrigal (Cahuilla/Turtle Mountain Ojibwe), Alex Nystrom (Ojibwe) and Jordan Waunch (Métis). The 2025 Native lab artists-in-residence are Sabrina Saleha (Diné) and Svetlana Romanova (Sakha/Even). All six filmmakers will receive guidance from creative advisors including Bryson Chun (Kanaka Maoli), Sarah Friedland, Kiva Reardon, and Erica Tremblay (Seneca-Cayuga). The Native Lab is overseen by Sundance Institute Indigenous program director Adam Piron (Kiowa...

In a win for independent cinema and the future of filmmaking, six projects have been unveiled today as part of Antigravity Academy’s flagship incubator, the Antigravity Academy Screenwriters Camp. This program was founded with the purpose of bringing unique voices in filmmaking to the forefront and helping them develop scripts for their debut features. It consists of a five-day intensive in Lake Arrowhead, California, followed by six months of hands-on development work, all leading up to a period of industry exposure with aims of making each project a reality. Each participant will come out of the Screenwriters Camp with a new draft of their screenplays, a first-look deal from Unapologetic Projects (“Dìdi (弟弟)”), and a commitment from Antigravity Academy to assist in shepherding their projects into the market.

Fellows and projects for 2025, with descriptions provided by Antigravity Academy, are:

“Pink Casa” by Bobby Herrera – A Tejano oil worker raises his mute niece,...

She wowed us (and Sundance programmers) with the short film (check out our Top 10 Short Films From Sundance 2024 article) on which this narrative is based on, and prior to being selected as a Sundance Screenwriters Lab Fellow, Thirstygirl, the feature, was acknowledged by the Black List and their new Projects Lab Participants. I got to speak to Alexandra Qin about everything that took place in her past year, along with her experience at the lab with what could be dicey/spicy material, how much of the short might carry over into the feature and we also learned about some of the producing team players that are supporting the project.…...

A pair of filmmakers who we thought struck gold with their Sundance shorts last year (read our top ten short film best of fest piece) in Diffan Sina Norman and Alexandra Qin are among the 11 fellows selected from 3,380 submissions for the upcoming 2025 January Screenwriters Lab. The most established name from the list is Sundance habitual Lana Wilson – who has populated the fest with docus After Tiller, Miss Americana, her two-parter Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields and her narrative debut Look into My Eyes. Her latest project is titled Back Seat.The projects selected for the 2025 January Screenwriters Lab and the artists attending are:

Verano (U.S.A./Mexico):…...

The coveted Vimeo “Best of the Year” awards have been announced.

In its 17th year, the annual awards celebrate the most outstanding shorts and video creators on the independent platform. Many “Best of the Year” alumni have later won Academy Awards, Sundance Awards, Cannes prizes, and more. The Vimeo Curation Team reviews thousands of films to select the winners based on originality, technical excellence, storytelling impact, and overall artistic merit.

“We’re proud to highlight the most iconic short films and branded content of 2024,” Ina Pira, Head of Curation at Vimeo, told IndieWire. “These films are the very best of those that received ‘Staff Picks,’ which in its 17th year is still curated by humans sifting through and handpicking the best work shared on Vimeo.”

Pira cited highlight films including Bill Morrison’s surveillance and body cam documentary “Incident” and Renee Zhan’s live action and animated film “SHÉ (Snake)” as standout originals.

If you believe that sex addiction is a ‘guy thing’ or that it’s a fun-filled, nonstop orgy of pleasure and fun, all you need to do is watch the opening scene of Thirstygirl. This is where we first meet Charlie – inside a filthy public toilet. She is breathlessly zooming into a photo of a naked man, sending suggestive selfies and frantically Googling gangbang porn before she starts masturbating. There is nothing glamorous or alluring about the way first-time director Alexandra Qin portrays sex addiction. It’s a cold and sobering depiction of a compulsive and uncontrollable behaviour which, instead of satisfaction, brings shame to her lead character, straining her already fragile relationship with her sister as the two drive to a rehabilitation centre. Loosely based on her own experiences with sex and love, drug and alcohol addiction, Qin’s ten-minute proof of concept short dances between comedy and drama...

Just ahead of the annual Black List (can you believe the list has been with us for two decades now) to be unveiled in mid-December, the Black List has named the projects and writers for its inaugural Projects Lab (with the important distinction is that they plan to direct the project). And among the six writers are developing feature projects we find Alexandra Qin – her amazing 2024 Sundance short Thirstygirl is being worked into a feature film. This year’s other writers include Dylan James Amick (The Estranged), Steve Anthopoulos (My Summer in the Human Existence), Meghan Lennox (Gay For Amy), Alex Murawski (Walking In Iowa) and Gabriella Mykal (Fuzzy).…...

Exclusive: In an expansion of its Lab program, the Black List has named the projects and writers for its inaugural Projects Lab. The six writers are developing feature projects they intend to direct. The Lab program, now in its eleventh year, provides creative mentorship and professional support to promising screenwriters during a weeklong workshop in Ojai, CA.

This year’s writers are Dylan James Amick (The Estranged), Steve Anthopoulos (My Summer in the Human Resistance), Meghan Lennox (Gay For Amy), Alex Murawski (Walking In Iowa), Gabriella Mykal (Fuzzy), and Alexandra Qin (Thirstygirl). The Black List selected these writers from over 1,700 script submissions on blcklst.com.

During the Lab, each writer will develop their screenplay through peer workshops and one-on-one sessions with working professional screenwriting mentors, including Hannah Fidell (A Teacher), Liz Hannah (The Girl From Plainville), Maryam Keshavarz (The Persian Version), Sarah Adina Smith (Birds of Paradise), Axelle Carolyn (The...

Exclusive: Back after three years, the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment and the Black List have selected 10 screenwriters over a variety of genres for the fourth Cape List.

Drawing from all avenues of the Aanhpi community, the deep talent bench of the 2024 list features scripts about gunslingers, the aftermath of 9/11, Korean folk horror, the private origins of pop hits and awakening on a 1980s Irish strawberry farm. Adding to scope of skills on display, a number of the 2024 finalists like Sinuous author Sam Boyer and 56 A.P.O. scribe Vineet Dewan have appeared on previous versions of the Cape List and The Black List itself, as well as the Indigenous List.

“Cape is thrilled to return with the Black List for our fourth iteration to continue the legacy of the previous three Cape Lists,” said Michelle K. Sugihara, Cape Executive Director of the 2019 launched initiative’s first list since...

The Gotham Film & Media Institute (The Gotham) has announced the winners of the inaugural Gotham Week Honors.

Gina Duncan, President of Bam (Brooklyn Academy of Music), was awarded with the first-ever Gotham Week Cultural Impact Honor. Filmmakers RaMell Ross and Sean Wang each received an inaugural Gotham Week Alumni Honor of Distinction Award.

The romantic comedy “Here for the Weekend,” written and directed by Jane Casey Modderno, won the U.S. Features in Development honor. “Thirstygirl,” written and directed by Alexandra Qin, took home the the U.S. Shorts to Features honor. “Matininó” won the Spotlight on Documentaries award.

Sophie Luo, producer of “Valley of the Tall Grass,” was recognized as the Global Producer of The Year. “Valley of the Tall Grass” is centered around “a trashed TV/Vcr combo set that survives and circulates through the lives of various Indigenous characters in an Oregon town.”

The Gotham Week...

In our recently published Top 10 short films of 2024 Sundance Film Festival, we identified Thirstygirl – an intimate, candid, taboo-free ten-minute travelogue and character study about the triggers behind addiction (made impossibly more complicated in the digi age) and the true pact of sisterhood featuring two mixed-race Asian-American siblings as our favorite from the 53 selected shorts that cracked the line-up. A filmmaker with a diverse cultural background, New York-based Alexandra Qin avoids a facile exploration of the condition and addiction drama trappings — making for a refreshing take on the possible ramifications of acting on that impulse.

In our interview, Alexandra is forthcoming and fully transparent about her proximity to the material (this extends to the eventual feature) and there is plenty to admire in how she broached the subject and confectioned a feature length project into this alluring short.…...