Member Lens: Writer/Director Gerardo Maravilla on Learning to Crowdfund & Sharing His Experiences
What happens when you fall in love with filmmaking, but don’t come from an artistic background and don’t have an MFA from the big film schools? Gerardo Maravilla looked to the resources that Film Independent provides, where he found “a sense of community, legitimacy, and accessibility that can be difficult to find.”
What started with attending a crowdfunding workshop to get his first project off the ground, ended up being a career long relationship, including becoming a Project Involve Fellow in 2021.
The LA based writer/director has made a career making shorts like Cross, about a young Filipino-American backyard boxer in the San Fernando Valley, and Vivir, a horror about an down on her luck artist who encounters a vampire, available now on Amazon Prime, and Show Me How to Die, currently on the festival circuit.
On top of being an accomplished writer/director, Maravilla now mentors youth with our Education Department, and in a full-circle moment, has even taught the same crowdfunding workshop that as an attendee, first introduced him to Film Independent.
Let’s start with your background. Where are you from, and what got you interested in movies and independent cinema?
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley here in Southern California. I didn’t really know that film was something accessible to me. I come from more of a working-class background. My dad is a plumber who came from Mexico when he was seventeen, and my mom worked in public education until she retired. So I had no idea. We didn’t have AC growing up, and it gets to be around a hundred degrees in the summer, so we spent our summers at the movies. I just loved going and felt it was something we could all share culturally together. I became a huge film fan.
It wasn’t until I went to Occidental College that I actually took a film class and used a video camera for the first time and got to make films. Initially I was going to be a political science major, but once I took that film class, it changed everything I wanted to do. I couldn’t think of a time in my life when a politician had genuinely changed someone’s mind, but I could think of times when a film had shifted people’s perceptions. It felt like a better way to make a difference.
What happened after college? You’ve built a strong body of short films. Can you walk me through that?
After I graduated, I was fortunate that my professor’s brother was Mike Mills, so I was able to get an internship on his film. Through that, I started working on different TV shows and movies to understand how larger productions work. I became an office PA on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But production hours are pretty crazy, twelve, fourteen hour days, and I didn’t have much time to make my own work.
I really wanted to make a short film again. I had noticed a real disparity between people who had gone to USC, AFI, or NYU, especially at the graduate level ,and those who hadn’t. So I set out to make a film called Cross, based on my childhood friend, a Filipino-American kid who gets into backyard boxing in the San Fernando Valley. That’s partly how I discovered Film Independent’s resources. I learned about a crowdfunding workshop they offered in partnership with Seed&Spark, and I went. It was one of the few times I walked away with actionable things I could actually do.
I don’t have a wealthy relative I can call to fund a movie, so I launched the Seed&Spark campaign, raised $15,000, made the short, and premiered it at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival. I built a real community around the film through the crowdfunding effort.
That ultimately led to me working at Seed&Spark, eventually becoming their head of crowdfunding — essentially doing professionally what I had gone to Film Independent to learn. Film Independent was genuinely instrumental at that stage, both in making that film and in my next career step.
Tell me about your experience with Project Involve.
Working as a junior executive at a startup is very demanding. I was traveling a lot and wasn’t creating as much, so I stepped away at the end of 2019. I wanted to make a film in 2020. The world had other plans, of course.
I had a history with Francisco Velasquez. I learned that Francisco Velasquez from Film Independent was an Occidental alum, and he was really kind to me. He read through an early draft of my boxing short Cross (2016). While I had been rejected from Project Involve twice as a Writer/Director, I used 2020 to focus seriously on writing, and was then accepted into the 2021 cohort as a Screenwriting Fellow.
Through Project Involve, I met Evelyn Martinez, who has been a great producing partner. She produced the short I wrote in the program and then encouraged me to make — and produced — the next two shorts I did in succession. The last one was through the Latino Film Institute’s Inclusion Fellowship in partnership with Netflix. Film Independent was again a real catalyst for pushing things forward for me.
What brought you to working with our Education Department, and why you think it’s important to educate the next generation?
I often think back to what it was like growing up and how inaccessible film felt to me. How intimidated I was by cameras, by video editing. Equipment was harder to come by back then. I always wonder what would have happened if someone had given me an opportunity earlier to practice those skills.
I had some experience mentoring before. I was a screenwriting mentor for the Youth Cinema Project through the Latino Film Institute. So when Film Independent reached out to me to participate, it just felt right.
There’s also something about filmmaking that can feel very consuming and self-focused, given how resource-demanding it is. And being honest, it can sometimes feel selfish. So there’s real gratification in giving back, in helping people understand what careers are possible and that they can actually do it, they just need to try.
It’s been great working with Sarah and others on the education team; to go to public schools and charter schools across Los Angeles, and feel like the lessons I learned the hard way can actually be helpful to other people, maybe pushing them to pursue something that they hadn’t thought about before.
Is there a particular event or feature of the Film Independent membership that you get the most out of?
I always love being able to go to the screenings. That’s such a big part of it — especially for films that maybe aren’t getting a huge studio push.
The workshops of course are great. One interesting full-circle moment: when I was working at Seed&Spark, I ended up giving the very crowdfunding workshop at Film Independent that I had previously taken as a participant.
I’ve also taken other workshops there: working with actors, demystifying distribution. It always felt like a real, hands-on, nuts-and-bolts education, and far more affordable than film school. I don’t have an MFA, but those workshops are so helpful. It just felt like, ‘Wow, I met so many great people through those events,’ filmmakers I’ve ended up in other fellowships and programs with.
And then there’s the Forum. It’s fantastic. They’ve asked me to come do some crowdfunding consultation there. It draws a great mix of current Members and people who are just arriving in LA to work in the industry. Film Independent just has a sense of community, legitimacy, and accessibility that can be difficult to find, especially when you’re trying to carve out space in an industry and you’re the first one in your family to do it.
Are there any upcoming projects you’d like to share with our audience?
The big goal right now is my first feature. I have a script called Child of Glass that I’ve been developing — I’ve taken it to labs in Mexico, won a pitch competition last year, and am really trying to build support and momentum behind it. As I’m sure you know as a filmmaker, it’s constantly pushing the boulder up the mountain.
Film Independent Artist Development promotes unique independent voices by helping filmmakers create and advance new work. To support our work with a donation, please click here. Become a Member of Film Independent here.
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Fiscal Sponsorship Spotlight: Beyond the Headlines
Welcome to Fiscal Spotlight, a special monthly round up of projects—at all stages of production—working their way through Film Independent’s Fiscal Sponsorship pipeline. Enjoy!
‘If it bleeds, it leads’ is a news maxim for a reason. The more brutal, shocking and violent a story is, the more eyeballs it will get. The event itself is attention-grabbing, but the aftermath is usually lived out away from the spotlight– whether it’s a system that has little hope of ever changing, a brave deed that ends up being punished, or a life destroyed by senseless violence.
The great value of documentary is that it gives these types of stories a more sustained life. We can live with these people for more than the few minutes it takes to read a story or watch on the evening news (or these days, social reel) and see the nuance and humanity. These three longform investigations shine a light on the forgotten and look to make an impact that’s long-overdue.
In Not So Far Away Places, a Russian activist goes undercover to expose the cruelty of the Russian prison system. Blowback follows whistleblowers, years after the news organizations that breathlessly covered their stories have moved on, and how the ‘whistleblower’ reputation has followed them and affected their careers and relationships. The Dark Narcisist follows a mother of two murdered children, as she confronts the failed system that let their father murder them before he killed himself.
Through Fiscal Sponsorship, independent filmmakers and media artists gain access to nonprofit funding, helping bring their unique visions to life. These projects embrace diversity, push creative boundaries, and showcase the power of independent storytelling. Want to explore the full lineup of sponsored projects? Head over to our Sponsored Projects page and take a look!
Keep reading to learn more, including how you can support these projects.
NOT SO FAR AWAY PLACES
Project type: Nonfiction Feature
Project status: Development
Cowriter and Codirector: Renato Borrayo Serrano
Cowriter and Codirector: Yulia Vishnevets
Producer: Milana Christitch
About the Project: In-depth immersion into the Russian prison repressive machinery shot from the subjective perspective of a human rights activist, working undercover to confront the totalitarian system from within.
Meet the Filmmakers:
Renato Borrayo Serrano — Codirector
Berlin-based documentary filmmaker telling intimate human stories while exploring how individual lives are shaped by wider struggles over power, justice, and dignity. His films have screened and won awards at major international festivals, including CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, Sundance, DOC NYC, Krakow IFF, Shanghai IFF, DOK Leipzig, Docudays UA, and others. His feature documentary Life of Ivanna (2021) won the Zurich Film Festival’s Grand Prix for Best Documentary, alongside numerous additional awards. As a cinematographer, he worked on the Netflix acquisition Skywalkers: A Love Story, which premiered at Sundance (U.S. Documentary Competition) and screened at Tribeca before receiving an IMAX theatrical release in the United States.
Yulia Vishnevets — Codirector
Berlin-based journalist and documentary filmmaker, director of over 20 non-fiction films. She has worked as a reporter and photographer in various media. From 2013 to 2014, she reported for Deutsche Welle in Germany. Since 2015, she has been a staff documentary maker for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Current Time TV in Russia. Her feature: Hey! Teachers! was screened at IDFA, Krakow, and received several international accolades. In September 2022, she was detained while filming an anti-war demonstration in Dagestan, spent 5 days in prison, and had to leave Russia at risk of further criminal prosecution.
BLOWBACK
Project type: Nonfiction Feature
Project status: Production
Director/Executive Producer: Brooks Harris
About the Project: Blowback begins with a simple premise: the system isn’t broken, it’s working as designed. The film follows whistleblowers who expose wrongdoing and are punished for it—not just to silence them, but to send a message. Beyond the headlines, it turns to the aftermath: what it takes to survive, and who you become, after telling the truth.
Meet the Filmmaker:
Brooks Harris — Director/Executive Producer
Brooks Harris is an award-winning filmmaker and founding partner of PURGATORY, a production company focused on character-driven documentary storytelling. Her work is grounded in journalism, with a focus on access, narrative precision, and stories that examine power and its consequences. She most recently served as an Associate Producer on Breath of Fire, a documentary series that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in partnership with Vanity Fair, where she contributed to story development and production. Her additional credits include projects for Amazon, Hulu, and Disney+, where she has worked across development, field production, and post to help shape premium non-fiction series.
THE DARK NARCISSIST
Project type: Nonfiction Feature
Project status: Development
Director/Producer: Trish Ward-Torres
About the Project: Following the murder/suicide of brothers River (15) and Jet (13) by their father Shan Collins, mother Kerrith McDowell, a nurse practitioner, confronts the many institutional failures within the mental health and law enforcement systems in Raleigh, North Carolina that cost her sons their lives even though she was uniquely positioned to seek help from within these failed systems.
Meet the Filmmaker:
Trish Ward-Torres —Director/Producer (PGA, DPA, WIF, FEME)
Trish Ward-Torres is a director/producer whose work examines the modern human condition. For more than two decades, she has helped shape award-winning nonfiction and narrative films, often centered on navigating failing systems. Ward-Torres most recently served as Senior Vice President of Documentary at Participant, where she was a Supervising Producer on films including In Waves and War, Food Inc 2 and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. Earlier, she worked at Netflix overseeing studio partnerships with FOX, NBCUniversal, Miramax, and PBS, following Producer roles at Lionsgate/CBS, Disney Studios, DreamWorks Animation and MTV.
Learn more about Fiscal Sponsorship, including its benefits and eligibility requirements by visiting our website. See which projects are currently being supported via our Sponsored Projects page.
Film Independent Artist Development promotes unique independent voices by helping filmmakers create and advance new work. To support our work with a donation, please click here. Become a Member of Film Independent here.
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Don’t Miss Indies: What to Watch in May
It’s an exciting month at the movies with three bold, Black fantasies packed with swagger and two Argentinian films made by female filmmakers. Whether your taste tends toward low-key suspense, creepy horror, sexual philosophy or hunting snakes in the middle of the night, indie filmmakers are always making something fresh for inquiring minds.
BLUE FILM
When You Can Watch: April 27
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Writer/Director: Elliot Tuttle
Cast: Reed Birney, Kieron Moore, Turner Beckett
Why We’re Excited: Aaron (Kieron Moore, Boots) is a fetish camboy who agrees to a night with a patron, named Hank (Reed Birney, Spirit Award winner Mass) but the rendezvous takes a turn when Hank’s true identity is revealed. As the night unfolds, Aaron and Hank revisit their history in light of recent changes in Hank’s life, exploring gray areas of philosophy as well as real life implications. Elliot Tuttle (The Steps) shared the film’s germination and intention with Them, “I found a very personal arc in the character of Aaron about how I feel as a gay adult operating in the Los Angeles gay culture…the Hank character really stemmed from writings that I had done about sex that were just on my computer. It was more a discursive exploration of years’ worth of thoughts and ideas about sex, and how it affects the way that you live your life.”
OUR LAND
When You Can Watch: May 1
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Director: Lucrecia Martel
Cast: Javier Chocobar, Comunidad Chuschagasta
Why We’re Excited: Lucrecia Martel (The Headless Woman) started researching this film in 2011, two years after Argentinian Javier Chocobar’s death at the hands of white miners. The moment was documented with Chocobar’s own video recorder, referenced by both sides for different reasons in the 2018 murder trial that finally took place after years of protests by Chocobar’s people, the Chuschagastas. Martel’s first documentary uses her own photography of the courtroom, drones, interviews and photos to tell the story of a country so segregated that white Argentinians have difficulty believing Chocobar’s death took place at all. As Martel traces this disconnect back to Spain’s colonization of the country in the 1500s, Land is a foray into ongoing attitudes toward land rights and human rights – a complex bureaucracy that obscures underlying prejudice.
ONE SPOON OF CHOCOLATE
When You Can Watch: May 1
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Writer/Director: RZA
Cast: Shameik Moore, RJ Cyler, Paris Jackson
Why We’re Excited: The latest from grindhouse filmmaker RZA (The Man with the Iron Fists) is a cinematic experience made for theaters. Unique (Shameik Moore, Dope) is a military veteran recently released from prison for assault while protecting a neighbor. Languishing in a veteran’s shelter, Unique laments the single spoonful of cocoa mix left in a tin, to which his companion replies that one spoon can change a whole cup of milk. This plays out when Unique makes it back to his hometown of Karensville, Ohio – the worst of the whitest places on earth. When Unique’s cousin falls victim to organ-harvesting thugs, his desire to blend in gives way to a violent compulsion for revenge. Chocolate premiered at Tribeca and is inspired by RZA’s own experiences with racially motivated violence in Ohio and New York.
TUNER
When You Can Watch: May 8
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Director: Daniel Roher
Cast: Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman, Havana Rose Liu
Why We’re Excited: Oscar-winning documentarian Daniel Roher (Navalny, The AI Doc) makes his debut with narrative filmmaking, working with actors for the first time to explore the converging worlds of piano tuning and safecracking. As long as we’re involving actors, why not start with Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man)? Hoffman is paired with Leo Woodall (White Lotus), a veteran piano tuner and his apprentice – but where Woodall’s character has super-sensitive hearing, Hoffman’s is going deaf. Together they tune the most desirable pianos in town, including one in which a group of men are attempting to open a safe. Drawn in with a genuine desire to help, Niki (Woodall) applies his hyperacusis to unwittingly rob the client. As he begins to fall for a conservatory student (Havana Rose Liu, Bottoms), he continues to be called upon for help with the safecracking crew, putting Niki in an increasingly complicated position.
THE PYTHON HUNT
When You Can Watch: May 8
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Director: Xander Robin
Cast: Toby Benoit, Jimbo McCartney, Shannon McCartney
Why We’re Excited: Film Independent members Ale Maria Odriozola and Joshua Sobel worked as Line Producer and Field Producer, respectively on this first documentary from Xander Robin (Are We Not Cats). In this wild ride through the Florida Everglades, it’s citizens versus invasive species – specifically Burmese pythons – on a sanctioned killing spree called the Florida Python Challenge. Anyone can enter, and after ten days of python-catching, there’s a $10,000 prize. Even so, rising to the challenge may be tougher than it looks. Robin joined the fray a year before filming, and didn’t even see a python, let alone catch one. Thankfully the pythons weren’t camera-shy, and even some other species turned up for the shoot. With a medic on site, the Python crew put a premium on safety measures (which thankfully were never needed), following hunters from all walks of life in pursuit of the prize.
IS GOD IS
When You Can Watch: May 13
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Writer/Director: Aleshea Harris
Cast: Kara Young, Mallori Johnson, Sterling K. Brown, Vivica A. Fox
Why We’re Excited: This brassy cinematic odyssey is also the directorial debut for playwright Aleshea Harris, who brought the story to stages around the country when it won the American Playwriting Foundation’s Relentless Award in 2016. This version of a revenge fantasy pits twin sisters Anaia and Racine (Mallori Johnson, Kindred and Kara Young, I’m a Virgo) against their father (Sterling K. Brown, Black Panther) at the request/command of their mother (Vivica A. Fox, Independence Day) – aka God. Sighting the Man as the reason for the burn scars on all three women, God sends the sisters on a cross-country quest to confront their abuser. The mix of family trauma, epic landscapes and biblical proportions set the scene for a confrontation that could lead to vengeance or mercy. “I hope that people are thinking about rage, about Black women’s rage in particular,” Harris said in an interview on Daily Bloid, “There’s a lot going on in this story that I hope people sit with.”
I LOVE BOOSTERS
When You Can Watch: May 22
Where You Can Watch: Select Theaters
Writer/Director: Boots Riley
Cast: Keke Palmer, LaKeith Stanfield, Naomi Ackie
Why We’re Excited: Spirit Award winner Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You) embraces the title of “boosters” for shoplifters who turn clothing around for discount sales. His cast is a collection of Spirit Award winners: Keke Palmer (One of Them Days), LaKeith Stanfield (Short Term 12) and Naomi Ackie (Sorry, Baby) – a ragtag bunch living large in a hyperrealized world of color and couture. Their nemesis? Diva designer Christie Smith (Spirit Award winner Demi Moore, The Substance), who not only towers atop a regime of fashion fascism, but has also stolen a design from one of the boosters, Corvette (Palmer). This setup leads to a series of retail adventures, as the boosters go undercover, engaging with Chinese factory workers and stop-motion animation in a quest to equalize the balance of power (and look great doing it). Film Independent member Gus Deardoff is an Executive Producer and Allison Rose Carter is a Producer.
BACKROOMS
When You Can Watch: May 29
Where You Can Watch: Theater
Director: Kane Parsons
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass
Why We’re Excited: First-timer Kane Parsons’ feature version of his hit web series (under the name, Kane Pixels) is an eerie twist on horror that blends urban legend and a concept that some of us just learned right now: creepypasta (a catch-all term for any horror content posted onto the Internet, according to Wikipedia). It all starts when therapist Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value) learns her patient, Clark (Spirit Award winner Chiwetel Ejiofor, Talk to Me) has discovered a secret door in the basement of the furniture store where he works. He’s been exploring the maze of backrooms systematically, documenting his findings with video and marking the way to get back out again. But when Clark goes missing, someone has to go in after him.
THE CURRENTS
When You Can Watch: May 29
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Writer/Director: Milagros Mumenthaler
Cast: Isabel Aimé González-Sola, Mauricio Bertorello, Sara Bessio
Why We’re Excited: Argentinian filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler (Back to Stay) grew up in Switzerland, which hints at the origins of her psychological mystery that takes place in both countries. We meet Lina (Isabel Aimé González Sola, La Révolution) in Geneva, where she receives a prestigious award for her work as a fashion designer, then jumps off a bridge. When she returns to her husband and child in Buenos Aires, it’s almost as if the Switzerland incident never happened – except for her extreme fear of water. Masking and dissociating only goes so far, as Lina’s skin and hair betray her inability to bathe. But more than that, it seems she no longer wants anything of the life she so intentionally built. As her family and friends wonder what can be done, Lina must face her true self.
PROGRAMMER’S PICK: SLIP
When You Can Watch: May 11
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Creator: Zoe Lister-Jones
Cast: Zoe Lister-Jones, Tymika Tafari, Whitmer Thomas
Why We’re Excited: From Film Independent Lead Programmer Jenn Wilson–
Zoe Lister-Jones’ terrific series Slip about an unhappily married woman who “slips” between timelines where she’s partnered with different lovers premiered at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival and had a streaming deal on Roku. In September 2023, Roku suddenly announced it was removing several projects, including Slip, from its streaming service as a cost-cutting measure. Despite being stuck in limbo with fans having no way to watch it, Slip was nominated for two Spirit Awards (Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series and Best New Scripted Series). After almost 3 years, Lister-Jones announced on social media that Slip was acquired by Peacock and would begin streaming in April 2026. Lister-Jones created, wrote, and directed the whole series herself, and it’s one of the strongest projects written for TV in a long time. At points it’s laugh-out-loud funny, but also incredibly poignant in its exploration of long-term relationships, love, and sex. Lister-Jones, Whitmer Thomas, and Tymika Tafari all give wonderful performances that infuse the series with so much energy. Viewers should count themselves lucky that such a unique show finally found a new life on another platform. Might we be lucky enough to get a Season 2?
KEY
Film Independent Fellow or Member
Film Independent Presents Screening, Q&A
Microbudget
Filmmaker or Lead Characters of Color
Film Independent Spirit Award Winner or Nominee
Female Filmmaker
LGBT Filmmaker or Lead LGBT Characters
First-time Filmmaker
LA Film Fest Winner or Nominee
Film Independent Artist Development promotes unique independent voices by helping filmmakers create and advance new work. To become a Member of Film Independent, just click here. To support us with a donation, click here.
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A Cut Above: Film Independent Announces 2026 Documentary Story Lab Fellows
Out in the field, a documentarian can point their camera anywhere, but in the darkness of the editing room, the real choices are made that turn that footage into an emotional, coherent and compelling story. That’s why the Film Independent Documentary Story Lab chooses to focus on getting those cuts as sharp as possible and supporting doc directors as they bring the pieces of their film together on the timeline.
Film Independent is proud to announce nine filmmakers selected for its 2026 Documentary Story Lab — a one-week intensive program kicking off May 4.
“This year’s Documentary Story Lab Fellows are engaging with questions of truth, legacy and survival in ways that are both deeply personal and broadly resonant,” said Daniel Cardone, Senior Manager of Documentary Programs & Fiscal Sponsorship at Film Independent. “These projects take on complex, often unresolved subjects—from a decades-long mystery in the American West to environmental injustice and cultural preservation—with a level of depth and access that demands careful, intentional storytelling.”
Fellows will be paired with a talented roster of Editing Mentors, including Alejandro Valdes-Rochin (Maxima), Claire Didier (Enigma), Pablo Proenza (Natchez), Christy Denes ACE (Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal), Veronica Pinkham (Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me), and Inbal B. Lessner ACE (Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult).
Guest speakers and Directing Advisors bring an impressive depth of experience to the program, including composers Gil Talmi and Andrew Gross, distribution specialists Orly Ravid and Annalisa Shoemaker, industry veteran Sarba Das, and Film Independent Fellows Alysa Nahmias (Cookie Queens) and Smriti Mundhra (Indian Matchmaking). Additional Directing Advisors include Michèle Stephenson (Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project), Jeremy Workman (Secret Mall Apartment), and David Osit (Predators).
This year’s Lab also includes the Cayton-Goldrich Family Foundation Fellowship — a $10,000 unrestricted cash grant awarded to a Jewish filmmaker participating in a Film Independent Artist Development Program. The 2026 recipient is fellow Cecilia Brown, who is developing her project A Bird with a Knife.
The Documentary Story Lab has an impressive alumni list. Notable projects that have come through the program include Daniel Lombroso’s Manhood (SXSW 2026), Suzannah Herbert’s Natchez (Tribeca 2025, Winner Best Documentary), and Harvest (Tribeca 2026), directed by Natalie Baszile and Hyacinth Parker.
Film Independent’s broader documentary programs have also supported Academy Award-nominated films Ascension (Jessica Kingdon) and Minding the Gap (Bing Liu and Diane Quon) — the latter also a Film Independent Spirit Award winner — along with work from Academy Award winner Shane Boris (Navalny), Academy Award nominee Sara Dosa (Fire of Love), and Emmy Award winner Lana Wilson (Brooke Shields: Pretty Baby).
The Documentary Story Lab is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The 2026 Documentary Story Lab projects and Fellows are:
Cecilia Brown
Cecilia Brown is a documentary director, editor and producer based in Portland, OR, and co-founder of Sideyard Studios. Brown’s directing and producing credits include award-winning shorts Oh Whale (2025, Producer), and Strong Grandma (2024, Co-director & Editor, New Yorker Magazine). She has edited multiple documentary shorts including Swept (2025 Emmy Nominee for Best Short Documentary), Teddy (2025), and Walking Two Worlds (Tribeca, 2022). Brown’s work has been supported by The Catapult Development Fund and SF MOMA, and published by HBO, The New Yorker, This American Life, Arc’teryx and The North Face, among others. She has also been awarded ‘Best Oregon Filmmaker’ by McMinnville Film Festival. Brown has a Master’s in Multimedia Journalism from the University of Oregon.
Winslow Crane-Murdoch
Winslow Crane-Murdoch is an award winning director and cinematographer based in Portland, OR, and co-founder of Sideyard Studios. His first documentary feature, The Quiet Epidemic, had its World Premiere at HotDocs 2022, and received a national theatrical release culminating in a screening at Congress. His latest documentary short, Oh Whale (2025), is currently on the festival circuit, winning the jury award for best short documentary at Montclair and New Hampshire film festivals. He co- directed and shot Strong Grandma (2024) which screened at the Paris Olympics and was acquired by The New Yorker Magazine. Crane-Murdoch’s work has appeared on HBO, TIME Magazine, Outside TV, the San Francisco MOMA, and has been supported by the Catapult Film Fund.
A Bird with a Knife
Logline: A Bird with a Knife explores the 50-year mystery surrounding thousands of cattle mutilations across the American West. Following a veteran investigator, an Oregon sheriff and the ranchers whose cases they’re working to solve, this film is about folklore, faith and the stories we tell when no absolute truth exists.
Èlia Gasull Balada
Èlia Gasull Balada is a NAACP Image Award-nominated visual artist and filmmaker. In 2021, she was listed in the DOC NYC 40 under 40 list, and in 2023 she was selected to be part of the Berlinale Talents. She has extensively worked as an editor and writer for documentaries and narrative films. Her most recent credits include The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Tribeca 2022), which won a Peabody Award and a Gracie Award, and received a Television Academy Honor. The Emmy and Peabody nominee The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show (Tribeca 2021) and the Emmy and Grammy nominee The King (Cannes 2017). On the narrative side, she edited Son of Monarchs, winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. For the past six years, Gasull Balada has been working on a mixed media installation that honors a group of Indigenous women from the Peruvian Amazon who suffered the trauma of forced sterilization at the hands of President Alberto Fujimori’s government between 1995 and 2000 — and their agency as artists and activists today. The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs is her directorial debut.
The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs
Logline: After a lifetime of hardship, 75-year-old Indigenous artist Sara Flores emerges from the Peruvian Amazon into the global contemporary art scene. As she confronts the emotional and physical toll that comes with being in the spotlight, she defies the lure of material wealth and transforms her art and legacy into a force for the territorial and cultural resistance of the Shipibo Nation.
Alex J. Bledsoe
Alex J. Bledsoe is a filmmaker whose work illuminates daily life on the frontlines of racial capitalism, and the portals we create for our physical and psychospiritual liberation. Oaklead, her debut feature documentary, follows Oakland community members as they fight to protect one another from lead poisoning in their own homes and schools – and uncover a century of environmental racism. Oaklead is a grantee of Sundance, Berkeley Film Foundation, Redford Center, Fund for Investigative Journalism, Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, a BAVC MediaMaker, and Cucalorus/Working Films/Documentary Accountability Working Group Works-in-Progress Lab Fellow, and California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellow.
Bledsoe produced the scripted feature film, Residue, about gentrification in Washington, D.C., which streamed on Netflix after screening at Venice International Film Festival and being distributed by Ava Duvernay’s Array. Residue won the John Cassavetes Award and was nominated for Best Editing at the 2021 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Bledsoe is the co-founder of Breaktide, the all women-of-color-owned film production company. She has been a guest columnist for the Washington Post, and a live featured guest on KQED Forum for her filmmaking and activism. Bledsoe earned her B.S. in International Politics from Georgetown University.
Oaklead
Director: Alex J. Bledsoe
Logline: In Oakland, California, we fight to protect our children from lead poisoning in our own homes and schools—and confront over a century of environmental racism. This is the story of the longest ongoing pediatric epidemic in U.S. history.
Katyayani Kumar
Katyayani Kumar is a director, editor, and writer working across documentary and fiction. Kumar is drawn to stories in the margins, where what slips into the shadows of society waits to be rediscovered. A fellow of UnionDocs in New York and incoming editing fellow at the American Film Institute, Kumar was selected by Academy Award–winning producer Guneet Monga to represent India at TIFF as part of the Women in Film delegation. Kumar’s films, including Coffined at Fifteen and Beholder, have screened internationally. Kumar is currently directing Sons of the River, supported by DOC NYC, HotDocs, Film Bazaar, and more.
Sons of the River
Logline: As bodies surface daily in Punjab’s Bhakra Canal, two rivals retrieve the dead from its wake, revealing a life-and-death struggle over power, morality and survival in a society abandoned by the state.
Vanessa Carr
Vanessa Carr is a documentary cinematographer specializing in character-driven vérité. Her work has appeared on HBO, Netflix, and Disney+, and premiered at Sundance, TIFF, SXSW, Tribeca, CPH:DOX and IDFA—and more. Selected credits include Heart of Invictus, Sentient, On Pointe, and Free Money. She shot and co-produced HBO’s Heroin: Cape Cod, USA, nominated for a Cinema Eye Honor. Carr is a DOC NYC 40 Under 40 honoree, LEF/CIFF and BAVC Mediamaker fellow, founding member of the Documentary Cinematographers Alliance, and founder of Doc House. She holds degrees from UC Berkeley and Columbia.
Josh Gleason
Josh Gleason is a director and producer whose work spans documentary film, television, and radio. His directing credits include The Disrupted (DOK.fest Munich, 2020), distributed by Passion River Films, and True Believer (Ashland Independent Film Festival, 2018). He has directed for Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s PBS series Finding Your Roots, produced for PBS’s Peabody-winning American Experience and Showtime’s Emmy-nominated The Circus. Before working in film, he reported for This American Life and NPR. He is a 2024 LEF/CIFF Fellow, DGA member, and a graduate of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.
Untitled Nomads Documentary
Logline: When an American family of five trades their house for an RV, teenage daughter Leilani must come of age on the road. Over six years, her parents’ radical attempt to educate her and her brothers through lived experience reveals the joys and costs of living outside societal norms.
Roni Jo Draper
Roni Jo Draper, PhD (she/they) is an enrolled member of the Yurok tribe. Her experience as a queer, Yurok woman has influenced her writing and work as a teacher, scholar, and artist. Draper produced Scenes From the Glittering World (2021). They also produced, directed, and wrote the short documentary Fire Tender(2023). Draper’s work has been supported by National Geographic, Vision Maker Media, WMM, The Redford Center, Firelight Media, and Sundance Institute.
Marissa Lila Kongao
Marissa Lila Kongao (they/them) is a documentarian and psychedelic healer raised in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Thailand. As a director and producer for film and television, their work centers marginalized perspectives who use storytelling to heal. Their work includes co-directing Fire Tender (2023), editing Transmormon (Artistic Vision Award, Big Sky 2014), and producing Scavenger (Big Sky 2013) short documentaries. Kongao also directed and produced a Regional Emmy-winning documentary series in Utah.
We Arrive with Fire / Ne-kah Nuue’m Mehl Mech
Logline: Since time immemorial, Yurok people have placed fire on the land to maintain a balanced ecosystem. In the past century, settlers banned fire, and both the environment and people have suffered. Now, Yurok people are returning fire medicine to heal the land.
For over 40 years, Film Independent has helped filmmakers get their projects made and seen. The nonprofit organization’s core mission is to champion creative independence in visual storytelling and support a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision.
Keep up with Film Independent…
The Power of Friendship & the Film Independent Producing Lab with ‘Booger’ Producer Lexi Tannenholtz
Applications for the Film Independent Fiction Producing Lab are now open. The deadline for non-Members is May 4th, while Film Independent Members have until May 18th.
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Producer Lexi Tannenholtz first bonded with director Mary Dauterman over “poop jokes.” The two shared a sensibility and work ethic and started working together on commercial projects. When it came time to make their first feature, the cat-horror grief meditation Booger, Tanneholtz brought it to the Film Independent Fiction Producing Lab.
We spoke with Tanneholtz about the experience of both taking Booger through the Lab, and producing a feature for the first time.
What drew you to producing?
I didn’t know what producing was initially. I first worked in television and loved doing every job and the catch all term for that was always producer. When I moved over into the narrative film space I was so confused, like so many, about what a producer really did. And the same answer still really applies, we do everything! I love finding the balance between creativity and strategy, building a team and making someone’s idea bigger, and ideally better, than they ever could have dreamed. Producers make the impossible happen and there is nothing I love more than that. Producers are also crazy and I think that applies here too.
How did you first get together with the Booger team, and what made you want to work with them?
Mary Dauterman, the writer director of Booger, and I were introduced through our mutual friend Graham Mason in 2020. I think he thought we’d laugh at the same dumb poop jokes and knew we’d work well together before we did. Mary is also a very successful commercial director, and after our initial zoom date she started asking me to produce some of the commercials she was working on. Turns out, she was testing me out to see if she should ask me to produce her feature debut Booger; and I’m forever happy she did!
I wanted to work with Mary, for the usual reasons, she is smart, cool and kind. But I also loved how prolific she was. So many people say they direct, but it’s hard to really make it happen – Mary had such a large breath of shorts and commercials, I so admired how much she already accomplished. I also felt we had a similar sensibility about work; we like to work really really hard and a lot. I think it can be difficult to find someone who matches your working style and it just really clicked with Mary. Also goes without saying I loved the script, she is funny as hell and great at what she does. It felt really kismet to meet each other at the time we did and make our first features together; there’s something special about meeting someone at the same career stage as you and growing together.
What was a particular or unique challenge you experienced producing Booger?
Everything was truly a unique challenge on Booger. It was both of our first features. We had never raised any financing before. We had to work with a lot of cat actors. We filmed in our own homes. We had a 15-day shoot. We never had enough money. But we brought together an incredible team of people who so believed in this story and Mary – as hard as it was, it was really a dream to pull it off together.
What led you to apply to the lab?
What led me to apply to the lab? Well, I idealized Film Independent and I couldn’t believe I finally had a project I could submit with. I had never done a lab before, and it felt so dreamy! How do I get into this secret club? I truly had no idea, but I could at least apply and see what happened. And it was literally the best thing that ever happened to me. I couldn’t believe it when I got accepted; it felt like the special start of something to be seen by this amazing institution in this way. I felt really proud.
Were there any particular workshops, advisors, or exercises that significantly impacted you?
My advisor was Amanda Marshall, and I was so freaking pumped to be matched with her. I admired her work like crazy, and I couldn’t believe she was forced to talk to me every day! It was epic. And now if you can believe it, I feel so lucky to call her a friend and get to bother her all the time
I also very much remember pitching Sheila Hanahan Taylor. It was the most anxious I was the entire fellowship. And getting through that made me really feel I could pitch the shit out of this movie to anyone. And then I did!
How did participating in the lab impact you, BOOGER and your journey with it as the producer?
To this day I am such close friends with everyone from my cohort; we still have an active text chain where we all ask each other the most bizarre producing questions. It’s been so special to get to celebrate each other’s successes both personal and professional, there’s been so many for everyone since our time in 2022.
Getting support from Dea, Ashley, Angela and the whole Film Independent team was amazing – but what really blew my mind was that it wasn’t just for the two weeks of the lab; they are so committed to helping you throughout your filmmaking career. I gotta say, I’m always bothering them with something, and they are always the quickest to lend a hand.
Participating in the Producing Lab really was a badge of honor for both me and Booger; it helped open so many doors. And the pitching tools I learned in every workshop truly impact how I treat and approach each film I work on today. It’s also the safest of places to ask any question… like what is a Waterfall? What is an MG? What is the difference between a manager and an agent? Questions I’m currently still asking myself…
And I still have all the materials I used for Booger and model so much of what I work on now from that and everything I learned from Film Independent. It really made me feel like participating in the lab was the start of the next step in my career.
Applications for the Film Independent Fiction Producing Lab are now open. The deadline for non-Members is May 4th, while Film Independent Members have until May 18th.
For over 40 years, Film Independent has helped filmmakers get their projects made and seen. The nonprofit organization’s core mission is to champion creative independence in visual storytelling and support a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision.
Keep up with Film Independent…
EXCLUSIVE: New Film Independent President Juan Devis on His Story – and the Next Chapter
Last week we announced that media and nonprofit executive Juan Devis has named our new President, filing the role left by the passing of former President Josh Welsh in December 2024, and held until recently in an interim capacity by Board Member Brenda Robinson.
Today we’re happy to share an exclusive interview with our new President, where we talk about the state of the film industry and how he views Film Independent’s place within it, and get to know a little more about who Devis is as an artist and advocate.
Let’s start with a bit of your history. Can you tell us about your journey and what drew you to storytelling and the arts in the first place?
I grew up in Colombia in the 70s and 80s. There was always this question of what role arts and culture play in making our society a better and more democratic place. My father was an artist, and my mother was a social worker and anthropologist. There were always painters, writers, filmmakers, sociologists and economists in my house having conversations about using arts and storytelling to illuminate, create inquiry, create beauty. I saw art was about holding a mirror up to society and critiquing it in a healthy way.
My father spent his time in the studio painting, and my sister was also very talented in the visual arts. I was not. So he gave me a 35mm camera, and that’s where my journey into film, television, and media began. I also started writing for theater. Very early on, I was deeply connected to storytelling. I was an avid reader and was involved in film clubs. That’s the origin story.
Tell us about your history with Film Independent. When did you first come across the organization, and how long have you been a Member?
I had made an interactive documentary series called Departures. María Raquel Bozzi, who is the Senior Director of Education and International Programs, invited me to the Film Independent Forum to talk about the project in the late 2000s. That was my first concrete connection with Film Independent.
Since then, I’ve been following all the programing, events, and Artist Development programs. I was a Member early on, then stopped, and reconnected about four years ago. I’ve been connected to Film Independent on and off for many years, always admiring the work that has been done here for decades.
What made you want to take on the role of President of Film Independent?
Right now, we have an industry redefining itself in many different ways. There’s also the question of what the word “independent” itself means now. We have a growing creator economy that is discovering truly independent ways of distributing and financing content. We also have new technologies, different formats, and niche audiences — everything is changing.
I think there is a space for a true independent voice — not only in terms of how things are structured, but in what we’re putting out into the world, whether it’s a film, a YouTube series, or anything else. I see it as an opportunity, not to reinvent Film Independent, but to embrace these changes, and position ourselves well for the future. The opportunity, though daunting, is genuinely exciting.
At the core, it’s about continuing to give access and opportunities to independent voices, regardless of the medium, and placing ourselves in the middle of the conversation.
How do you see balancing Film Independent’s legacy while also pushing for innovation and growth?
Something very important to me is that Film Independent holds the entire life cycle of what independent film and media is all about. We’re not just a collection of programs and events. We give access to and support artists. We help build audiences for distribution. We have events and we celebrate. We will continue to be that. We just need to shift the way we see our day-to-day operations slightly — moving from a program-centered organization into a more content-led one.
Film Independent occupies a unique space within the entertainment industry. How do you see the organization’s role in that ecosystem, and what makes it a vital component?
Without independent voices, nothing in the industry is going to get refreshed. They need us as much as we need them, and I don’t think that will change. The challenge is that young independents right now are finding their own ways of doing things and they no longer need that gatekeeper or that feeder structure. We need to understand what our role is, not only for the broader industry, but for the independent voice itself. That’s the work we have ahead of us
We have a dedicated and passionate community — Members, supporters and artists who make up the Film Independent family. How do you plan to engage with them and strengthen the connection?
I’m excited about exploring Membership growth on a global level. We have incredible international programs through the Global Media Makers initiative and other development projects across the globe. We need to figure out how to grow our global Membership base, because we are already doing the work out there.
We also need to plant ourselves locally and grow our base here in LA, which continues to be the hub of the creative economy in the United States. I think there is both a hyper-local and a global approach required for Membership, and that is going to mean looking at not only our in-person programming, but digital access, so that global Members can genuinely feel part of this community. Those feel like two real growth areas for our Membership.
Let’s dive deeper so our community can get to know you better… What types of films do you love to watch? What are a few of your favorites?
Having grown up in Colombia, what are considered “foreign films” here have always been part of my film education. I love Michelangelo Antonioni. He is one of my all-time favorites. I love some of the Cuban films made right after the revolution, like Memories of Underdevelopment by director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. I love a great deal of golden-era Mexican cinema. And Italian neorealism. Those films were so formative.
On the American indie side, I love 1970s cinema. Films like The Long Goodbye and The Wild Bunch have an energy that is extraordinary. When I arrived in the United States in 1989, there was such incredible energy around independent film. Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing were, for me, truly radical, beautiful examples of American independent cinema.
More recently, I love Sirāt and many of the international films that have come out in the last couple of years. The independent spirit is very much alive in other parts of the world right now.
And on a completely different note, I also find myself curious about what is happening in micro dramas — for entirely different reasons.
The challenge is that structurally, they’re built for the algorithm. It’s quite something to watch them from beginning to end without stopping. But there is also some genuinely exciting immersive storytelling happening right now. The work Alejandro Iñárritu did with his immersive exhibition at LACMA is a great example. The independent voice is very much alive, and it crosses formats and genres.
What do you think translates most directly from your professional background into this role, and what will be genuinely new territory for you?
I started as a writer-director. And when I ran the content and production arm of KCET here in Los Angeles, I was working as a producer, showrunner, and creator. So I bring the experience of what it means to be an independent creator.
I also bring the experience of having to build frameworks and systems for content to actually be produced and distributed. I had to build teams, bring in resources, and build operations.
And I have a deeply rooted connection to community. The more you have a sense of belonging to a place and to people, the more you understand where you are and where you came from, and the happier you’re going to be. That community-rooted understanding is something I’ll bring to this role.
What I’m most excited about is being part of the conversation around what the independent voice means and what it will produce twenty years from now. Can we be the fertile ground where that conversation happens? Can we give access, production opportunities, and celebrate new voices in this new media landscape that lies ahead of us?
You mentioned your vision of Film Independent becoming a great Los Angeles institution — on the level of the LA Philharmonic or LACMA. How do you see Film Independent interacting with the world of LA arts and culture?
Film and television are such an important presence in the cultural life of this city, and yet there has been no cultural institution quite like Film Independent to fully represent them. Film and TV have somehow been set apart — placed in one category while the Philharmonic, LACMA, MOCA, and other cultural institutions carry the banner of “culture.”
But now there is a growing understanding that film and television are essential to the cultural life of LA. We generate jobs, those jobs create purchasing power. The people who work in film and television are the same people who go to concerts and museums. There has been a genuine shift in how people understand the role that film and television play. And I don’t think there is any other organization in LA that can tell the story of what independent film, television, and media mean to this city the way we can.
We need to tell our story more broadly, see ourselves as content creators and curators, and position ourselves as an organization that is actively helping the economy and culture thrive in LA. That’s how we become that kind of institution.
It sounds like lots of exciting work ahead. Thank you for giving us, and our Members, the opportunity to get to know you as we begin this new chapter together.
Thank you.
For over 40 years, Film Independent has helped filmmakers get their projects made and seen. The nonprofit organization’s core mission is to champion creative independence in visual storytelling and support a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision.
Keep up with Film Independent…
INTERVIEW: How Documentary Producing Lab Fellow Bryn Silverman Shaped 6 Years of Footage Into True/False Hit ‘Pinball’
Applications for the Film Independent Documentary Producing Lab are now open. The deadline for non-Members is May 4th, while Film Independent Members have until May 18th.
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Documentaries can be known to have long shooting schedules. It takes time to get a participant comfortable living their life with a camera crew around. For True/False Film Festival hit Pinball, and its Producer Bryn Silverman the challenge was even greater.
The team wanted to make a coming-of-age film with its participant, the Iraqi refugee Yosef Al Windawi. After years unsettled and traveling from Iraq to Jordan and Egypt, Yosef and his family finally settled in Louisville KY, and started to live a suburban American life. The filmmakers connected with him and his story while shooting another film, and decided to make a new project based on his life living between two worlds. To fully capture that coming-of-age experience, Silverman and Director Naveen Chaubal shot with Yosef and his family for six years.
After capturing all that, Silverman brought a rough cut to the Film Independent Documentary Producing Lab, where she was able to hone the film with the help of mentors and her cohort. We spoke with her about that experience, and what it takes to follow a thread for over half a decade.
Tell me about the genesis of Pinball and how you got involved.
I went to Louisville for the first time to shoot a short film with director Naveen Chaubal, who’s my collaborative partner. It was a experimental short doc at a school bus racetrack in southern Indiana.
In the making of that short, we were casting non-actors going around to high schools in Louisville. That’s where we met Yosef. He was in this after-school drama program.
We put together a little teaser, and he came up to Naveen and he was like, ‘hey, I kind of look like the kid in the teaser. I think I’d be great for this role’. So we cast him in that short.
In doing that film, we got really close to him and his family. He and I bonded over our love of soccer and played a lot of soccer together. Naveen and he really bonded over growing up straddling two cultures in suburban America.
When we approached him about making a feature about his true story, he said, “I never thought my life was that interesting.” That was the beginning of a conversation that just has not ended.
Since making that short, Naveen and I moved to Louisville. So now we live here full time. This film completely transformed our lives and informed the filmmakers that we are and want to be.
You’ve been following Yosef for a while now. How long exactly?
We filmed with him for about six years.
What were some of the unique challenges of producing a documentary that goes for that long?
I think the film called for time. A lot of docs do call for that amount of time just to build trust, have real meaningful relationships with the people that we’re filming with, spending time together when the camera is not there.
I think what it meant was working within our means. We’re a really small team. For those six years, it was Naveen and I on the ground running sound, camera, everything.
And then a couple of months leading up to our premiere, our team quadrupled because we brought on a music supervisor, consulting and story editors and all these folks to help us get it over the finish line.
But I think it was a juggling act because on the one hand, films just kind of require the time that they require. And then on the other hand, of course, it’s really expensive. It was this balancing act of figuring out, what is this process asking of us emotionally and physically, and then how can we make that happen financially?
Tell me a little bit about your relationship with your director Naveen, and how you first worked together. How do you complement each other during production?
Yeah, we met in film school at USC and L.A., then worked a lot together after school over maybe seven years. And then the short Pinball was our first foray into directing and producing our own work.
We have this dynamic of having really in-depth conversations, by each other’s side for all of it. We’re partners in real life, too. We’re married, we got married in Louisville a couple of years ago.
We are just really good communicators, I think, and have very complimentary personalities. He directed this and I produced it, but I direct as well. And he produces my work. And I think there’s this interesting give and take.
He’s much more soft-spoken and I’m like, let’s get out there and go do it. I think I’m more introverted, ironically, than he is. But in a lot of ways, we have balancing energies.
Something that a lot of people have been responding to is the sequence in Egypt. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Yosef and his family were in Egypt before they got asylum in the US, so many of Yosef’s early childhood memories are of Egypt. They’re Iraqi American, but Egypt plays a big role. It was always a goal of his to go back to visit Egypt.
He and his sister Azraa went together, and they invited us to come, which was incredible. It was just the four of us, and we spent two weeks, in Egypt together.
It was really, really hot, hard to get around. We weren’t filming all day because it was just physically impossible. Azraa and I got sick. But then there was this undercurrent of discovery and excitement happening, especially for Yosef, because he started to recognize places. He would FaceTime his mom and dad and be like, ‘where did we live? What’s the address of the apartment where I grew up?’
At one point, Yosef and Azraa are having a meal together that Yosef remembers from his childhood, and Azraa takes a bite and also remembers it. It’s this spark. It lit them up and I think inspired them and inspired us to show what the experience of revisiting childhood can feel like.
And I think for them, that’s so multilayered and so complex. And there’s so much, I think, trauma and tragedy that they’re grappling with in those scenes in the film. But then they’re so young and excited and fun and love to joke around with each other that there’s just a lot of different emotional layers playing at the same time.
And I think that happens throughout the entire film.
Where were you with the film when you applied and what made you want to apply to it to the producing lab?
This is actually my second time applying. I knew I was going to apply again because there are so few resources for doc producers out there like this.
It is such an essential resource for doc producers to connect with each other and to stay inspired, be acknowledged and have spaces where you can talk about your craft as a producer. We talk a lot about directors’ craft, but producing is a craft too.
With Pinball, we had a rough cut. We all watched each other’s work samples in the lab, and it was so incredible to hear from the cohort and from our mentors.
You have a certain idea of where you think you are in the process because you’re so close to it. In the lab, it was like getting this feedback of like, ‘Oh, wait, we thought we were here, but maybe we’re over here’. It’s feedback that you don’t always want to hear because I thought we were further along. And then it just sort of blows that out of the water in the best way.
We ended up finishing the film within six months of the Lab. And I think that was to do with the lab. If we didn’t get that consolidated amount of intentional feedback. There was so much attention and care about what we were trying to do and then others were contributing their own creative insights to that.
What is a piece of advice that you would give to someone who is applying to the lab this year?
Keep applying if you don’t get in. Also, look up the past cohorts and contact those people and talk with them. I feel like people who are drawn to producing tend to have a real community driven mindset. Most producers that I’ve reached out to always respond with open hearts and are like, ‘I hear you. This is hard. Let’s do it together’. I did that the second time applying, reached out to people who had done the lab in the past, and I’m glad I did.
Also join the Documentary Producers Alliance. I’m on the board!
Applications for the Film Independent Documentary Producing Lab are now open. The deadline for non-Members is May 4th, while Film Independent Members have until May 18th.
Film Independent Artist Development promotes unique independent voices by helping filmmakers create and advance new work. To become a Member of Film Independent, just click here. To support us with a donation, click here.
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Film Independent Names Veteran Media Exec Juan Devis President
Juan Devis, former Chief Creative Officer at the Public Media Group of Southern California (PBS SoCal | KCET), has been named President of Film Independent. Devis, an accomplished media executive, creative strategist and proven fundraiser, will lead the organization into its next chapter.
The appointment follows the passing of former President Josh Welsh, in whose honor the organization established the Josh Welsh Legacy Endowment this year, raising over $1 million to support urgent year-round artist programs. Devis will honor this legacy as he guides Film Independent’s mission to champion creative independence in visual storytelling and support a vibrant global community of artists.
“This is a pivotal moment for Film Independent as we enter our next era, and I am absolutely thrilled to welcome Juan Devis as our next President,” said Acting President Brenda Robinson. “Juan brings a rare blend of institutional leadership and independent production experience, from overseeing award-winning programming at PBS SoCal, to his work at Ninety-Three Media. His track record of expanding how independent stories reach audiences and elevating distinguished voices makes him the ideal choice to lead the organization forward.”
Search Committee Co-Chairs Alix Madigan and Eric d’Arbeloff led an expansive search process. “We met many outstanding candidates,” they shared. “Juan stood out for the way he embodies the enduring values that define Film Independent – championing artistic voices and building community – in a way that transcends the rapidly shifting landscape.”
“I’ve spent my life creating access, building ecosystems and championing diverse voices, because I believe that a healthy, inclusive and sustainable independent film community isn’t just good for artists—it’s essential for our culture,” said Devis. “I am looking forward to helping build Film Independent’s future as a resilient, globally connected, multi-platform ecosystem that sustains and celebrates independent film and media worldwide.”
Devis also emphasized Film Independent’s unique role in the industry and its home in Los Angeles. “Unlike any other institution, Film Independent provides a continuous, integrated pathway for independent film and media,” he said. “Our unique value lies in this end-to-end stewardship—from discovery to funding to production, distribution and celebration. Film Independent is the preeminent cultural institution in Los Angeles that advocates for, grants access to and celebrates filmmaking’s vital role in our city’s cultural and economic health.”
ABOUT JUAN DEVIS
Devis brings decades of experience at the intersection of storytelling, community engagement, and cultural leadership. He previously served as Chief Creative Officer at the Public Media Group of Southern California (PBS SoCal | KCET), where he oversaw a large team of creatives and a production slate that earned over 30 Emmys as well as James Beard, Edward R. Murray and National Arts and Entertainment Journalist Awards. His work as a creator and curator includes acclaimed series such as Artbound, Migrant Kitchen, Broken Bread with Roy Choi and Art Happens Here with John Lithgow, among others.
Devis also co-founded Ninety-Three Media, a cross-cultural production company focused on independent film, documentary and emerging media. Throughout his career, he has been recognized for team building, fostering partnerships and advancing inclusive storytelling across platforms. He currently serves on the boards of the Snap Foundation and the California Cultural and Historical Endowment.
Originally from Colombia, Devis studied film at Emerson College before earning an MFA in directing from CalArts. His career has been defined by a commitment to using storytelling as a tool for community-building, cultural impact and artistic excellence.
He lives in Los Angeles with his partner, filmmaker Laura Purdy and their two children.
For over 40 years, Film Independent has helped filmmakers get their projects made and seen. The nonprofit organization’s core mission is to champion creative independence in visual storytelling and support a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision.
Keep up with Film Independent…
Don’t Miss Indies: What to Watch in April
What shall we watch? April is bursting with fruitful seeds of storytelling, and everything’s coming up Riz Ahmed and Michaela Cole. Both actors lead two different releases this month, including Bait and The Christophers, respectively – each screened in a members-only Film Independent Presents! Read on for our top ten recommendations.
HUNTING MATTHEW NICHOLS
When You Can Watch: April 6
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Director: Markian Tarasiuk
Cast: Miranda MacDougall, Markian Tarasiuk, Christine Willes
Why We’re Excited: Inspired by public interest in true crime stories, newcomer Tarasiuk’s documentary-style horror film follows Tara Nichols (Miranda MacDougall, When Calls the Heart) back to her hometown on Vancouver Island. Twenty years after her brother’s disappearance, Tara goes in search of him – armed with her skills as a documentary filmmaker and newly released police evidence. Tarasiuk (There’s Someone Inside Your House) plays himself as the director of Tara’s film, and as the two conduct their investigation they begin to suspect Matthew Nichols may yet live. “Even though we’re blending mockumentary, found footage, and traditional narrative, the goal was never to ‘perform’ those styles,” Tarasiuk told Pop Culture Unplugged, “but to fully commit to them. I wanted the audience to feel like they were uncovering something, not watching something that had been constructed for them.” Film Independent member Lucy McNulty is a producer.
THE CHRISTOPHERS
When You Can Watch: April 8
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Michaela Coel, Ian McKellen, Jessica Gunning
Why We’re Excited: Spirit Award winner Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Videotape) developed this “two people in a room” script specifically for Spirit Award winner Ian McKellen (Gods and Monsters) and Michaela Coel (Spirit Award-winning I May Destroy You) – knowing it was a bad idea but choosing to double down. “The movie lives or dies on the text and the performances,” he told The Hollywood Reporter, “and coming up with ways to keep it interesting to look at…Every shot, every scene, every line has to prove that it deserves to be in the movie.” In Christophers, an artist’s adult children – James Corden (The Late Late Show with James Corden) and Spirit Award winner Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer) – hire a forger (Coel) to complete unfinished works in hopes of gaining an inheritance from their father (McKellan). What begins as something of an art heist ushers in deeper thoughts about the nature of art and relevance.
THE TRAVEL COMPANION
When You Can Watch: April 10
Where You Can Watch: Limited Theaters
Directors: Alex Mallis, Travis Wood
Cast: Tristan Turner, Anthony Oberbeck, Joanna Arnow
Why We’re Excited: Alex Mallis and Travis Wood’s directorial debut is an observant comedy about friendship that premiered at Tribeca. Simon (Tristan Turner, Et Tu) is a struggling filmmaker, feeling overlooked among his peers like Beatrice (Naomi Asa) and Jess (Spirit Award nominee Joanna Arnow, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed). But at least Simon has one thing going for him – free air travel, thanks to companion status with his roommate Bruce (Anthony Oberbeck, Reveries: Going Deeper), who works for an airline. But when Beatrice and Bruce start dating, it jeopardizes Simon’s hopes to complete his sprawling documentary that relies heavily on gathering footage from around the world. Simon becomes preoccupied with the possibility of losing his travel privileges to Beatrice, and as his jealousy rises so does the awkwardness between all three of them. Executive Produced by Film Independent member Neil Champagne.
HAMLET
When You Can Watch: April 10
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Director: Aneil Karia
Stars: Riz Ahmed, Morfydd Clark, Joe Alwyn
Why We’re Excited: Shakespeare’s tragedy has held a deep connection for Spirit Award winner Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal) since a drama teacher introduced it to him at the age of 17. After collaborating with Aneil Karia (Surge) on a short film, titled The Long Goodbye, the concept of a modern-day Hamlet that had bounced around production studios for ten years began to find its legs. “I realized: here’s a director who’s worked with a lot of rappers,” Ahmed said of Karia in a THR interview, “and has found a way of taking that elevated register, taking a gritty contemporary environment and making it feel elevated and poetic.” The setting – London’s South Asian community – reflects the cultural values of the material, with spirit possession, blood debt, forbidden romance, and even levirate marriage still alive and well. Karia’s vision focuses the action around Hamlet, giving us a chance to get into his head and understand the whole story through his experience, putting Ahmed’s quiet intensity on display.
MOTHER MARY
When You Can Watch: April 17
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Writer/Director: David Lowery
Stars: Anne Hathaway, Michaela Coel, Hunter Schafer
Why We’re Excited: The pop thriller from David Lowery (A Ghost Story) is an intriguing mashup of genres that has Spirit Award nominee Anne Hathaway (Eileen) as Mother Mary, trying to recapture her artistic identity. Her career has been disrupted by a rift with best friend and costume designer Sam (Michaela Coel, Spirit Award-winning I May Destroy You), as well as a supernatural element that is hinted at in the trailer. With original music from Jack Antanoff, Charlie xcx, and FKA twigs, Mary is a whole new kind of feather in Lowery’s eclectic career cap, inspired by his own artistic quest. “I started writing a dialogue between the part of me that could make Disney movies and the part of me that could make The Green Knight,” he told Filmmaker Magazine. “It sounds reductive to say it that way because of course I can make both. I love all forms of cinema. But in that moment, I was confused, and that confusion – my search for clarity – became the early pages of the screenplay.”
NORMAL
When You Can Watch: April 17
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Director: Ben Wheatley
Stars: Bob Odenkirk, Ryan Allen, Billy MacLellan
Why We’re Excited: From the creator of the John Wick and Nobody franchises, Derek Kostad, Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul) is the new sheriff of a small town where every citizen has a gun and where his predecessor died mysteriously. Though the new lawman is only a sub until the next election – and seems completely “normal” but for one or two interesting skills – Ulysses is put in the center of a major upheaval when a bank robbery goes wrong, turning the whole town into a conspiracy against the law. To navigate the complexities of the story, Ben Wheatley (Free Fire) drew on Odenkirk’s depth and range as an actor, even dropping lines from the script to allow his inner workings to speak for themselves. Resulting in a high-energy action flick with subtlety and depth.
MAD BILLS TO PAY
When You Can Watch: April 15
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Writer/Director: Joel Alfonso Vargas
Stars: Juan Collado, Destiny Checo, Yohanna Florentino
Why We’re Excited: Joel Alfonso Vargas expands on his short film, Que te vaya bonito to explore coming of age as Rico (Juan Collado, Ghosts of Fort Greene), a 19-year-old selling drinks on the beach must find a way to provide for his girlfriend (Destiny Checo, who was also in the short) and unborn child. Though he’s confident his beverage sales are about to bloom, Rico’s mom and sister are less impressed. Vargas’ locked-down camera and free exchange between actors lends to a slice of life in a Dominican neighborhood of The Bronx, letting Rico’s optimism and carefree charm shine while he ambles toward maturity. For a microbudget project shooting 12 pages a day, Vargas embraces his constraints and makes them work for the story, which premiered at Sundance. Executive Produced by Film Independent members Tyler Boehm, Chris Quintos Cathcart, Robina Riccitiello and Julie Waters.
BAIT
When You Can Watch: April 23
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Creator: Riz Ahmed
Cast: Riz Ahmed, Guz Khan, Aasiya Shah
Why We’re Excited: A smart, satirical comedy series about Shah Latif – Spirit Award winner Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal) – and the role of a lifetime. Can a struggling actor of South Asian descent play the international man of mystery, James Bond? The world has feelings about this. Over the course of four days, we watch Shah’s world explode with potential, both for better and worse. As an actor starring in a show about acting, Ahmed explores genres in each episode, from spy-thriller to rom-com and family drama, embracing the realities of life in a world that hands you a clever talking point followed by a banana peel. Who are you? What do you really want? And can fame help or hurt your chances of getting it? All through the lens of casting culture, family of origin, and industry expectations. What exactly has Shah gotten into by taking the Bait?
OMAHA
When You Can Watch: April 24
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Director: Cole Webley
Stars: John Magaro, Molly Belle Wright, Wyatt Solis
Why We’re Excited: After directing many a TV commercial, Cole Webley’s first first foray into features was catalyzed by the purity of Robert Machoian’s script. “It’s a story about dads,” he told IndieWire, “there’s many elements to it, but that was one that really, really grabbed a hold of me.” The road trip drama centers on a young family of three – a dad (John Magaro, Past Lives) and two kids, Ella and Charlie. Awoken early on a 2008 morning to drive cross-country without explanation, Ella pieces together clues about their spontaneous trip through the American West. The three performances make for a poignant coming-of-age that showcases the power of family. Film Independent member Preston Lee is a producer and Meg Morman did casting.
PROGRAMMER’S PICK: THE BLUE TRAIL
When You Can Watch: April 3
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Director: Gabriel Mascaro
Cast: Denise Weinberg, Rodrigo Santoro, Miriam Socarras
Why We’re Excited: From Film Independent Lead Programmer Jenn Wilson
Winner of the Berlin International Film Festival’s 2025 Silver Bear, Gabriel Mascaro’s The Blue Trail takes us on a journey through a futuristic Brazilian society where old people are considered a nuisance to their families and shipped off to colonies so they don’t disturb the “productivity” of the younger people. Lead character Tereza (Denise Weinberg) who is 77 and forcefully retired from her job decides that she will not be moved to the colonies, however, and sets out on a plan to escape the authorities who are constantly in search of her. Director Mascaro, who started out as a documentary filmmaker, is very good at observational cinema, letting the characters and story unfold themselves before us, and the film is a beautifully imagined look at what escaping an authoritarian regime could entail. Actors Denise Weinberg, Miriam Socarras, and Rodrigo Santoro give great performances. If you can, watch this beautifully shot film in a movie theater on a big screen.
KEY
Film Independent Fellow or Member
Film Independent Presents Screening, Q&A
Microbudget
Filmmaker or Lead Characters of Color
Film Independent Spirit Award Winner or Nominee
Female Filmmaker
LGBT Filmmaker or Lead LGBT Characters
First-time Filmmaker
LA Film Fest Winner or Nominee
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Bridging the Gap: Film Independent’s New CineBridge Initiative Launches with 2 Fellows and $1.1 Million to Bring New International Voices to Hollywood
Hollywood can feel like its own world, even for American filmmakers, but breaking in can be especially challenging for international filmmakers. Film Independent’s new CineBridge Samuel and Ruth P. Cohen Fellowship aims to change that.
The initiative was created by the Film Independent International team and filmmaker Richard Tanne, best known for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-nominated Southside with You and Amazon MGM’s Chemical Hearts. Tanne has been mentoring international filmmakers through Film Independent’s programs, leading workshops in places like Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. “CineBridge was built as a literal bridge for international filmmakers into the Hollywood system, not just to develop their work, but to position it to succeed at the highest level,” said Tanne.
That vision found support in the Estate of Samuel and Ruth P. Cohen, whose $1.1 million gift will support up to two Fellowships per year.
“We are excited to collaborate with filmmaker Richard Tanne on this initiative and are grateful to the Samuel and Ruth P. Cohen Estate for this important gift to amplify our work cultivating the careers of filmmakers across borders. It’s an honor to see Richard, who has been involved in our programs as a mentor, be inspired to invest in our mission in such an intentional and committed way,” said María Raquel Bozzi, Senior Director of Education and International Programs.
Starting in April, the two Fellows will be part of a program that starts out virtually and then concludes with a month-long residency in Los Angeles this September. The virtual sessions will be all about strengthening pitches, screenplays and packages, while the residency will bring the Fellows face-to-face with industry experts as they take meetings around town, attend masterclasses, case-studies and the Film Independent Forum, where they’ll pitch live on-stage as part of a Pitch Clinic.
The inaugural CineBridge Fellows were selected from over 100 nominations across 40 countries. They are:
Tomás Fleck
Tomás is a writer/director focused on blending genres and connecting with audiences. His debut feature, You Gotta Have Faith (Minerva Pictures, TVCO), premiered at LABRFF, where it won two awards. He has participated in prestigious programs such as the Academy Award–recognized Cine Qua Non Script Revision Lab with his project My Luminous Shadow, which is being filmed in May 2026, and began developing his story for The Other America as an Oxbelly Fellow. Tomás has written and directed series that were exhibited on Netflix, Globo, and Amazon Prime in Brazil and his films have screened at Oscar-qualifying festivals such as Cinequest, Nashville Film Festival, and the major Brazilian Festival de Gramado.
Project: The Other America
Logline: In the tradition of recent Brazilian Oscar contenders like The Secret Agent and I’m Still Here, The Other America is a romantic espionage thriller about a CIA operative sent to Brazil who falls in love with his fabricated life — and the woman in it. When both governments close in, he must choose between the American he was built to be and the Brazilian he became.
Fisnik Maxville
Fisnik Maxville was born in Kosovo, in the former Yugoslavia. Exiled to Switzerland, he grew up there as a war refugee. After studying International Politics, he began directing in 2015. Since then, he has written and directed four short films, three documentaries and one fiction feature film. His work has been showcased at numerous international film festivals, including Locarno, Tallinn, Clermont-Ferrand, Raindance, Visions du Réel and São Paulo. He is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and the Ateliers d’Angers. His debut fiction feature, The Land Within, won Best First Feature at the 2022 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. Fisnik is currently developing two fiction features.
Project: Reel Skin
Logline: In the lineage of female-driven body horror like The Substance and Titane, Reel Skin follows an undocumented woman who has spent years making herself invisible to survive. When a bite from a genetically engineered snake begins transforming her in terrifying ways, the body the world tried to erase becomes the one thing they can’t stop.
For over 40 years, Film Independent has helped filmmakers get their projects made and seen. The nonprofit organization’s core mission is to champion creative independence in visual storytelling and support a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision.
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Watch: How Disparate Storytelling Styles Can Help Us ‘Always Remember’
Much of the discussion about how to tackle the horrors of the Holocaust through art have been filtered through a declaration by German philosopher Theodore Adorno after World War II: “To write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric, and that corrodes also the knowledge which expresses why it has become impossible to write poetry today.”
Although Adorno later walked back this view, the underlying question remains relevant: can art ever truly do justice to something as terrible as a genocide? Does story have the power to hold and transform that much pain, or will it always be a pointless or “barbaric” endeavor?
Two films currently screening digitally as part of our Always Remember series grapple with just that question. The screenings are free for Film Independent Members.
The Most Precious of Cargoes, directed by Oscar-winner Michel Hazanavicius, and Inked: Our Stories Remarked, by director/producer Dara Bratt take different tacks to explore how, 80 years on, we can understand what happened, and strive for the ever relevant goal, “Never Again.”
In Inked, Bratt explores the idea of the using the profane as a way to process trauma. The documentary is about the phenomenon where third generation decedents of Holocaust survivors choose to remember their ancestors by getting tattoos, often times with the same identification number branded onto their grandparents. Tattoos are traditionally prohibited in the Jewish faith, so the tattoos the Nazis inked into Jewish prisoners were not only dehumanizing, but a callous violation of internees’ religious beliefs.
The grandchildren of survivors the film focuses on want to let their ink be a way to keep the story alive on their own bodies, even if the act went against traditional values or could bring up pain in older generations. Much like how the queer community reclaimed the pink triangle the Nazis used to label them, this generation of Jews is intent on taking back tattoos. “I was really interested in how tattoos have become a language, how moved on from like oral storytelling to written to now a graphic sense of storytelling.” Bratt said in a Q&A at the New Orleans French Film Festival. “I really wanted to explore the idea: ‘how do we preserve legacy?’”
For The Most Precious of Cargoe’s Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), animation was a way he could process tragedy. “I could not make a live action movie on that topic,”
“Animation does not pretend it’s reality. It’s, it’s obviously, a representation and evocation, a suggestion of, what happened, but it’s not pretending that it’s real,” Hazanavicius said in a Q&A recorded for this series. “It’s impossible for me to ask to extras, for example, to pretend they are being deported in a train for Auschwitz.”
The film is about a couple who find a baby thrown from one of the mysterious trains that pass by their forest home. They realize the child is one of the so-called “heartless” that is demonized by the local population, which leads to conflict and asks who gets to determine who has a heart or not.
“This story was not about the past,” he said. “It was more like a bet on the future. It’s something that you can say to the young generation and to the kids– to bring them heroes that say to them, even when you feel that the world is falling around you, you always have the choice to be a good person.”
Go to our Events page to find out more about these and other Film Independent Presents screenings.
Always Remember is sponsored by the Cayton-Goldrich Family Foundation and the Claims Conference with Vision Media as its Screening Partner.
For over 40 years, Film Independent has helped filmmakers get their projects made and seen. The nonprofit organization’s core mission is to champion creative independence in visual storytelling and support a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision.
Keep up with Film Independent…
Write Place, Write Time: Meet the 2026 Film Independent Screenwriting Lab Fellows
Why now? If you’ve ever pitched a movie, you’ve heard this question posed before. For anything to happen in the film business, it sometimes feels as if the stars have to align. Luckily for seven screenwriters– Andrés Pérez-Duarte, Emma He, Maddie McCann, Sam Osborn, Rammy Park, Alissa Torvinen and Alejandra Vasquez– the timing just happens to be perfect. They’re ready for their close-up.
Cue the Film Independent Screenwriting Lab.
The intensive, in its twenty-eighth year, is designed to give the Fellows individualized story and career development. The Fellows will work with creative advisors as they dig deep into their screenplays and learn to navigate a career as a writer.
Creative advisors include powerhouses like Linda Yvette Chávez, Phil Hay, Javier Fuentes-León, Matt Manfredi and Robin Swicord. Additional guest speakers and advisors include Ruth Atkinson, Marco Alvarez, Clint Bentley, Tyler Boehm, Mike Downing, Jordan Hart, HIKARI, Greg Kwedar, Marvin Lemus, Justin Lothrop, Amanda Marshall, Ellen Shanman, Lauren Shelton and Kendrick Tan. The writer/director of last year’s Rental Family, HIKARI previously participated in this same lab with 37 Seconds. Her return as a guest speaker is an exciting full-circle moment for the program.
“We’re so excited to support this outstanding cohort of writers who approach their work with nuance and creativity,” said Dea Vazquez, Associate Director of Fiction Programs. “We’re thrilled to be able to further develop both their scripts and careers in the program.”
For the second year in a row, the Climate Entertainment Development Grant, a partnership between Film Independent and Plot Shift Media, is giving a grant to a filmmaker who deals with “the pathways to a just and equitable climate future”. This year’s $25,000 grant goes to Alissa Torvinen for her project Extinction of the Badger Duck.
If you want proof of the value of the Film Independent Screenwriting Lab, just look at its alumni. Recent projects include Adam Meeks’ Union County, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and Jing Ai Ng’s Forge, which had its world premiere at last year’s SXSW Film Festival and will be released in theaters this Spring by Utopia. Academy Award-winner Chloé Zhao got her start here with her feature debut Songs My Brothers Taught Me. So did Andrew Ahn with his Film Independent Spirit Award-winning debut Spa Night.
Now let’s meet this year’s Fellows:
ANDRÉS PÉREZ-DUARTE
Andrés Pérez-Duarte is a Mexican storyteller based in Nashville, TN, creating work across film, television, games, and immersive media that celebrates queer and BIPOC stories with heart, humor, and a rebellious streak. Pérez-Duarte co-wrote and creative-directed Lili, a screenlife thriller that premiered in competition at Cannes ‘25 (immersive), and co-created Hero, a VR experience earning the AIS Lumiere and Tribeca Storyscapes Awards. His screenplay Jorge in Paradise was featured on the GLAAD List, and won the MACRO x The Black List Screenwriter Incubator. He holds the Sundance Imagination Award, and The Last Supper was part of the ‘25 Gotham Week.
Project: The Last Supper
Logline: In a close-knit and religious Mexican-American community, a closeted baker prays away her homosexuality to secure her place within a prominent local family. But when her prayer for change backfires, a bizarre twist of fate reverses everyone’s sexual orientation overnight, plunging the entire town into bewildering chaos.
EMMA HE
MADDIE McCANN
Maddie McCann is a Baltimore-based writer and filmmaker, as well as a member of the development team at SmartLess Media. In partnership with Emma He, she makes absurdist comedies about ambition. Their short films, I Want To Be You and Musicians Wanted, have screened at festivals across the country. Their first feature script, Superbloom, was a Top 10 Finalist at the Shore Scripts Feature Contest, and is currently in development with the support of the Film Independent Screenwriting Lab.
Project: Superbloom
Logline: In Scottsdale, Arizona’s not-so-wild West, wallflower Callie must transform from outcast to outlaw to affordthe nose job of her dreams.
SAM OSBORN
Sam Osborn is the co-director of the film Going Varsity in Mariachi, which premiered at Sundance 2023 and won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award for the U.S. Documentary Competition. It went on to screen at festivals worldwide and is currently streaming on Netflix. Osborn’s first feature-length documentary as a director, Universe, about Wallace Roney, the only protege of Miles Davis, was awarded Best Music Documentary by the International Documentary Association in 2020. His short-format films have been featured on Independent Lens, Topic, LA Times, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
ALEJANDRA VASQUEZ
Alejandra Vasquez is a Mexican-American filmmaker raised between rural Texas and the San Francisco Bay Area. Her award-winning films spotlight youth, art & culture, and convey a cinematic sense of place in rural and borderland environments. Her feature directorial debut, co-directed with Sam Osborn, Going Varsity in Mariachi, premiered at Sundance 2023, won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award in the U.S. Documentary Competition, and is now streaming on Netflix.
Her short films include Folk Frontera (Independent Lens), winner of Best Texas Short at SXSW; Baca (LA Times Short Docs), commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); and When It’s Good, It’s Good (POV Shorts), a co-production with Latino Public Broadcasting currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.
Project: Teen Age Riot
Logline: When teenager Emilio Monreal is dragged to Mexico City after his mother’s divorce, he finds a home amongthe city’s emo scene. Little does he know that he’ll play a pivotal role in the stranger-than-fiction punk vs. emo riots of 2008, battling in the streets for his right to exist.
RAMMY PARK
Rammy Park is a writer, director and producer. Her television credits include Amazon’s The Wheel of Time, HBO’s The Nevers, and Quantum Leap on NBC. She is currently working on Life is Strange, a new series from Amazon Prime and LuckyChap.
A lifelong lover of fantasy, science-fiction and satire, she is an impassioned world-builder whose work explores genre through an intimate, character-driven lens. A former journalist, Park earned her MFA in Directing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She completed the Sony Showrunner Training Program in 2022 and is an HBO Directing Fellow and a Film Independent Fellow.
Project: Seasonal
Logline: Untethered by the loss of her mother after a long period of caretaking, Nara Lee seeks refuge on a remote Danish island. There, the seasons guide her through a cycle of loss and love, bringing her back to the one home she will always have: herself.
ALISSA TORVINEN
Alissa “TORV” Torvinen is a director known for bold, stylized visuals and performance-driven storytelling. Her projects span music, commercial, and narrative.
Her work has screened internationally, gone viral online, and streamed globally across major platforms. She has collaborated with actors and artists including Phoebe Bridgers, P!nk, Black Eyed Peas, Liev Schreiber, and Zooey Deschanel, and directed national broadcast and digital campaigns for brands such as Johnson&Johnson, HP, and Spectrum.
In 2019, she co-directed a feature-length musical with popstar Melanie Martinez that holds a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score. Her Phoebe Bridgers video was named IndieWire’s Best Video of the Year.
Project: Extinction of the Badger Duck
Logline: Extinction of the Badger Duck follows the rediscovery of a mythic bird and the viral mania it inspires.
For over 40 years, Film Independent has helped filmmakers get their projects made and seen. The nonprofit organization’s core mission is to champion creative independence in visual storytelling and support a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision.
Keep up with Film Independent…