News

Pasifika Entertainment Advancement Komiti has unveiled the second cohort of its annual Peak Writers Fellowship.

The cohort includes Benjamin Pola, Pingi Moli, Ciara Lacy, Lauren Toʻomalatai and Conrad Lihilihi.

Backed by Netflix, the fellowship identifies and supports five up-and-coming writers who create stories from a Pasifika (people of Pacific Islander descent) perspective as they launch their careers in television. Founded by Peak Co-Founder, director, screenwriter, and showrunner Dana Ledoux Miller and co-managed by program director and screenwriter Bryson Chun, the initiative remains the only Hollywood writing program created by a Pasifika storyteller.

The fellowship is structured to guide emerging writers toward securing their first staff writing roles. Each participant will be matched with an experienced industry mentor to help elevate their original scripts into polished, professional samples. Fellows take part in a series of panels and conversations with leading voices in film and television, providing them with the tools and...

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...

The Sundance Institute has announced the fellows selected for the 2025 edition of its Directors, Screenwriters, and Native Labs.

Taking place since the mid-’90s, the Native Lab kicks off in person today, continuing through May 3 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In addition to artists named below, artists-in-residence Sabrina Saleha (Diné) and Svetlana Romanova (Sakha/Even) will be participating. The Lab is designed for artists of Native and Indigenous backgrounds who aim to center Indigeneity in their work. Over five days, fellows refine their scripts for feature and episodic projects in one-on-one feedback sessions, screenplay readings, and roundtable discussions with advisors, while building community on Native land in Santa Fe.

The Native Lab is overseen by Adam Piron (Kiowa and Mohawk), Director of the Institute’s Indigenous Program, alongside Senior Manager Ianeta Le’i. Creative advisors will include Bryson Chun (Kanaka Maoli), Sarah Friedland, Kiva Reardon, and Erica Tremblay (Seneca-Cayuga).

“Every year...

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...

Exclusive: The Pasifika Entertainment Advancement Komiti has revealed its inaugural Peak Writers Fellowship class.

Supported by Netflix, the new fellowship discovers and nurtures six emerging Pasifika writers who are looking to launch their careers in television. Founded by Peak co-founder, director, screenwriter and showrunner Dana Ledoux Miller, this is the only writing program in Hollywood created by a Pasifika creative.

The Peak Writers Fellowship is designed to help early-career writers land their first staff writing positions. Each fellow will be paired with a high-level industry mentor to help transform their original scripts into professional-level writing samples to prepare them to land their first staff writing positions. Fellows also will participate in panels and discussions with top television and film industry professionals aimed at equipping them with the practical and business knowledge needed to succeed as a writer in the entertainment industry.

The 2024 Peak Writers Fellowship class includes: Olivé (Jacqueline Olive), Sophia Perez,...

IllumiNative, The Black List and Sundance Institute today revealed the finalists for their 2022 Indigenous List, which represent the best and most promising Native creatives in the film and television industry. See the list below.

The Indigenous List was launched in 2020 to provide a platform for Indigenous writers to showcase their scripts, create additional pathways and opportunities within the industry, and support the development of the next generation of screenwriters.

This year’s writers will have the opportunity to meet with four Indigenous creatives who have first-look and/or overall development deals at major studios, including Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne); actor-director Michael Greyeyes; Sierra Teller Ornelas, showrunner/co-creator of Rutherford Falls; and Sterlin Harjo, showrunner/co-creator of Reservation Dogs.

“As one of the few Indigenous producers with a first look at a studio, I’m excited to help support our storytelling community engage in business to bring more exciting...

The Sundance Institute has named the summer fellows for the Directors, Screenwriters and Native Labs.

The Labs give writers and directors a space to develop their craft and selected projects with input from a roster of industry mentors and advisers. Some parts of this year’s labs, normally held in person in Utah, will take place virtually on the Sundance Collab platform.

At the Directors Lab, which runs June 1 to July 2, filmmakers will participated in roundtable discussions, presentatons and one-on-one meetings, as well as rehearsing, shooting and editing a scene from their work-in-progress screenplays at home. The Screenwriters lab, from July 6-9, will support one-on-one story sessions to develop original and timely screenplays.

The Native lab, running from Monday to May 21, focuses on storytellers from Native and Indigenous backgrounds, including feature film, episodic work and cultivating artists-in-residence.

The labs are organized under feature film program founding director Michelle Satter, deputy...

Labs organised by Michelle Satter, director Ilyse McKimmie, and N. Bird Runningwater.

Sundance Institute on Monday (May 10) named the artists and projects selected for the first group of the upcoming signature summer Labs including 12 fellows for the Directors and Screenwriters Labs and nine participating in the Native Lab. One fellow will participate in both Labs.

Directors Lab (June 1-July 2) fellows and projects are: Erica Tremblay (co-writer/director) and Miciana Alise (co-writer) with Fancy Dance; Cris Gris (director) and Mary Ann Anane (Writer) with forward; Tracy Droz Tragos (writer/director) with The Macrobiotic Toker; Diego Céspedes (writer/director) with The Mysterious...

Exclusive: The Asian and Asian American community in the country has had a rough couple of weeks. One could also argue they have had a rough couple of years — or even decades — since the first Asian set foot on the soil of America. Nonetheless, now is the time for authentic, humanizing representation of Asian and Asian Americans to bolster community morale and to bring light to a time when things seem so dark.

The Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (Cape) and major industry partners have launched the ninth annual Cape New Writers Fellowship, the premier non-studio professional development program that trains emerging writers to succeed in Hollywood. The fellowship boasts multiple showrunners and graduates that have been staffed on over 50 shows across all major network, cable, and streaming platforms.

Led by top industry writers, producers, agents and executives, the Fellowship was co-founded and is co-chaired by Steve Tao and Leo Chu. The sessions include master classes, panels, and workshops, as well as writing labs, in which Fellows revise their scripts under one-on-one mentorship with high-level industry professionals.

This year’s mentors and speakers include Monica Macer, Melinda Hsu Taylor, Sunil Nayar, Teresa Hsiao, Alexander Woo, Albert Kim, Tanuj Chopra, Kyle Harimoto, Jason Ning, Vicky Luu, Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, Nazrin Choudhury, and April Shih, who has the special distinction of being the first alumni of the Cape Fellowship to return as a mentor.

“For the past 30 years, Cape has fought to break barriers in entertainment for our stories to be heard because we all know racism is not new,” said Michelle K. Sugihara, Cape Executive Director. “Dehumanizing tropes in media such as the Yellow Peril, Perpetual Foreigner, and Model Minority leads directly to physical violence against us in the real world, which is why this is more than a representation issue, it’s a social justice issue.”

The participants of the 2021 Cape New Writers Fellowship are:

Bryson Chun is a Hawaiian filmmaker who has produced films that have screened for PBS, The Smithsonian Museum, The Criterion Collection, and festivals worldwide. He was a screenwriting fellow for Sundance, imagineNATIVE, LA Skins, and ‘Ohina Labs. Most recently, he was selected for The Blacklist’s Inaugural Indigenous List, which spotlights some of the best Indigenous film and television writers working within the U.S. Darek Cioch is a Korean and Polish American writer from Seattle. After studying film at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he began his entertainment career working for Anonymous Content and HBO. Since then he has been a writers’ assistant for television shows on ABC, NBC and FX. Darek is currently a researcher on FX’s Impeachment: American Crime Story. Jane Yubin Kim is a Korean American writer and performer based in Los Angeles. After graduating from Ucsb where she studied film, she worked in post production and regularly performed and wrote comedy at the Upright Citizens’ Brigade, where she was a Ucb Diversity scholarship recipient. She is repped by Authentic. Kyle Kubo & Fatima Liaqat are a comedy writing duo/life duo who first collaborated at BuzzFeed writing and producing viral videos. Kyle is biracial Japanese/white, Fatima is a queer, disabled Pakistani, and together they have a passion for writing comedy scripts that blend with other genres from musicals to sci-fi to horror and historical fiction. Their work has placed in Austin Film Festival and the WeScreenplay Diverse Voices competition and has been showcased at Ucb theater stage, Vice, Vanity Fair, Bustle, Thrillist and more. Olive Song is a Chinese-American writer from the suburbs of Georgia. After surviving homelessness, foster care, and a professional figure skating career, they moved on to earn an Mfa in screenwriting from USC. A part-time YouTube binger and a full-time storyteller, Olive has worked with both the Sundance Institute and Participant Media and is currently a Showrunner’s Assistant for an upcoming hour-long TV drama. Vinita Mehta & Richard Nguyen were raised by immigrants, and went on to study psychology at Columbia and Harvard, respectively. Their writing is informed by shared experiences in TV news and documentary production, providing psychotherapy, and D&i consulting. Their screenplays have been a Cinequest Top Ten Finalist, Humanitas New Voices Finalist, and Tracking Board’s Top 100 Pilots and Winner of the Mentorship Prize. Sonali Mehta is a TV writer’s assistant and former video game story editor. A genre-agnostic, all of Sonali’s writing centers around one relevant and complex theme. Sonali’s favorite shows include Succession, Breaking Bad, and Killing Eve. She is repped by Tulsea. Yugo Nakamura grew up in Tokyo as a half-Japanese, half-Jewish boy who spoke mostly Japanese. His family abruptly moved to NYC just before high school. Film and TV is what got him through the intense culture shock, which lead to his undergraduate film degree. Yugo had a career in postproduction before he set out to earn his Mfa in Screenwriting at the AFI Conservatory, graduating in 2020.

After graduating from the fellowship, the participants join a distinguished roster of alumni including Bo Yeon Kim & Erika Lippoldt (Star Trek: Section 31), Lauren Moon, Julie Wong (Grey’s Anatomy), Brian Shin (The Good Doctor), Eileen Shim (House of the Dragon), Kevin Lau, Helen Shang, Lisa Bao (Nancy Drew), Aaron Ho (Fresh Off the Boat), Tania Lotia (Witcher: Blood Origin), Nikhil Jayaram (Shades of Blue), Marisa Tam (L.A.’s Finest), Franklin jin Rho (Pachinko), Allyssa Lee (Charmed), Teresa Huang (MacGyver), Thomas Wong (Good Trouble), Jeremy Hsu (Jimmy Kimmel: Live!), Ken Kobayashi (Hit Monkey), Chris Wu (Man in High Castle), Joanne Lee (Coop and Cami Ask the World), Gabriel Ho (Clarice), Andrew N. Wong (Superman & Lois), D. Dona Le (FBI: Most Wanted), Nathan Ramos-Park (Club Mickey Mouse), Leonard Chang (Snowfall), Ken Cheng (House of Chow) and Iram Parveen Bilal (I’ll Meet You There), among others.

The Criterion Channel has unveiled their March 2021 lineup, which includes no shortage of remarkable programming. Highlights from the slate include eight gems from Preston Sturges, Elaine May’s brilliant A New Leaf, a series featuring Black Westerns, Ann Hui’s Boat People, the new restoration of Ousmane Sembène’s Mandabi.

They will also add films from their Essential Fellini boxset, series on Dirk Bogarde and Nelly Kaplan, and Luchino Visconti’s The Damned and Death in Venice, and more. In terms of recent releases, there’s also Matthew Rankin’s The Twentieth Century and Claire Denis’ Let the Sunshine In.

Check out the lineup below, along with the teaser for the Black Westerns series. For weekly streaming updates across all services, bookmark this page.

The Adventurer, Charles Chaplin, 1917

Bandini, Bimal Roy, 1963

Behind the Screen, Charles Chaplin, 1916

Black Jack, Ken Loach, 1979

Black Rodeo, Jeff Kanew, 1972

Blood Simple, Joel and Ethan Coen,...

Exclusive: The Black List, along with IllumiNative and the Sundance Institute have selected the nine scripts for the inaugural Indigneous List, which spotlights some of the best (if not the best) Indigenous film and television writers living and working within the U.S.

Submissions for The Indigenous List kicked off in June and closed in September. The Native-led nonprofit Illuminative launched to increase the visibility of Native peoples in American society. They challenge negative narratives, stories, and stereotypes about Native peoples and provide tools to develop an accurate representation of voices of Native peoples.

Here are the scripts selected for The first 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...

In today’s film news roundup, “Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool” finds a home, the Saturn Awards land a producer and La Skins Fest selects five fellows.

Acquisition

Abramorama has bought North American theatrical rights to Stanley Nelson’s documentary “Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool” and plans releases in August and September.

“The story of Miles Davis – who he was as a man and artist – has often been told as the tale of a drug-addled genius,” said Nelson. “You rarely see a portrait of a man that worked hard at honing his craft, a man who deeply studied all forms of music, from Baroque to classical Indian. An elegant man who could render ballads with such tenderness yet hold rage in his heart from the racism he faced throughout his life.”

The film premiered in January at Sundance. It includes outtakes from his recording sessions, rare photos and interviews with Quincy Jones,...