FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Seanna Hore, Ginsberg/Libby
seanna.hore@ginsberglibby.com

Gladys Santos, Ginsberg/Libby
gladys.santos@ginsberglibby.com
 

LOS ANGELES (October 10, 2024) – Film Independent, the nonprofit arts organization celebrating 40 years of the Spirit Awards, announced today the six producers selected for the 2024 Producing Lab and six producers selected for the inaugural Documentary Producing Lab.

“Producers are the backbone behind every great film and supporting their work in these turbulent times is all the more vital. We couldn’t be more thrilled to expand our programming to include documentary Producers and welcome this incredibly talented and tenacious cohort of fiction and nonfiction Producers in this year’s Producing Labs,” said Angela C. Lee, Director of Artist Development.

Now in its twenty-fourth year, the intensive fiction track of the Producing Lab is designed to help creative, independent producers develop their skills and further their careers by introducing Fellows to film professionals who can advise them on both the craft and business of independent producing. Each Producing Lab Fellow was paired with an experienced Creative Advisor with whom they worked to develop their project over the course of the program.

This year’s Creative Advisors were Maria Altamirano (All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt), Andrew Carlberg (Sun Dogs), Sarah Kim (I Was a Simple Man), Amanda Marshall (Swiss Army Man), Jordana Mollick (The Idea of You) and Jim Young (The Words). Guest speakers include Chad Burris (Frybread Face and Me) Apoorva Charan (Joyland), Cathy Schulman (The Woman King), Anne-Elisa Schaffer (Rightscenter), Annalisa Shoemaker (Independent Distributor), Anita Surendran (Attorney, Partner, Granderson Des Rochers, LLP), Lena Vurma (Adventures of a Mathematician) and Maria Zuckerman (Theater Camp).

The Lab concluded with an event where Fellows pitched their projects and met with executives from companies including Fat City, Kas Kas Productions, Linden Entertainment, Roadside Attractions, Unapologetic Projects and Verve.

Film Independent awarded the Sloan Producers Grant to Namir Khaliq for his project The Gold Bug Variations. The Sloan Producers Grant is awarded to an outstanding project whose screenplay integrates science or technology themes and characters into dramatic stories. The grant is part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s nationwide film program to advance public understanding of science and technology.

The 2024 Producing Lab is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. It is also supported in part by The Harnisch Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Rightscenter will be providing the Producing Lab Fellows with complimentary access to their product, an unrivaled database and concierge research service for film and television rights information to books and other literary IP.

The Film Independent Producing Lab has supported films such as In the Summers, produced by Daniel Tantalean, which was awarded the 2024 Sundance Grand Jury Prize; The Inspection, produced by Chester Algernal Gordon, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival and was released by A24; Cannes Un Certain Regard and Spirit Award Winner Joyland, produced by Apoorva Charan; Spirit Award-nominated Songs My Brothers Taught Me, produced by Angela C. Lee and Mollye Asher; and Spirit Award-winning director Monica Sorelle’s Mountains, produced by Robert Colom, which premiered at Tribeca and was awarded U.S. Narrative Feature Special Jury Mention. In addition, the Producing Lab has supported some of the film industry’s most exciting independent talent, including Lizzie Shapiro (Shiva Baby), Lena Vurma (Adventures of a Mathematician) and Avril Speaks (Jinn).

In a natural and exciting evolution of Film Independent’s long-running Documentary Lab, this year’s inaugural Documentary Producing Lab was held in September and focused on supporting documentary producers with projects active development, production or post-production for an intensive one-week program. Fellows were paired with creative and business consultants, learning strategies and practices that will benefit them not only on their current projects, but throughout their careers.

During the Lab, filmmakers worked with Lead Producing Advisors Diane Quon (Minding the Gap), Megan Gilbride (Dear Mr. Brody) and Christine O’Malley (Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields). Distribution Advisors were Caitlin Boyle (Distribution Strategist) and Orly Ravid (The Film Collaborative).

Guest Speakers included Robert Bahar (The Silence of Others), Diane Becker (Navalny), Julia Nelson (2AM – Film Finance & Sales), Alysa Nahmias (Wildcat), Christy Denes (Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal), Kathy Susca (The Film Collaborative), Leah de Leon (Documentary Producers Alliance) and Dale Cohen & Loralee Sundra (UCLA Documentary Law Clinic).

The Lab concluded with an event where Fellows pitched their projects and met with executives from companies including A24, CAA, Cinetic and Submarine.

With the generous support of The Harnisch Foundation, each Fellow also received professional coaching by Renee Freedman & Company as part of the program, positioning participants for success as they continue to grow professionally.

The Documentary Producing Lab is supported in part by The Harnisch Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Notable past Documentary Lab-supported producers include Diane Quon with the Academy Award-nominated and Spirit Award-winning film Minding the Gap; Jessica Kingdon’s Academy Award-nominated Ascension; Academy Award winner Shane Boris with The Seer & The Unseen; Emmy Award winner Alysa Nahmias with A Decent Home; Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown’s Emmy-nominated United Skates; and multi-Emmy Award nominee Smriti Mundhra with A Suitable Girl.

The Producing Lab and Documentary Producing Lab are part of Film Independent’s Artist Development Programs, which include the Filmmaker Labs (Documentary Story, Episodic Writing and Directing, Feature Producing and Screenwriting); Fast Track finance market; Fiscal Sponsorship; our Grants & Awards program and our signature diversity program, Project Involve.

Additional information can be found at filmindependent.org.
 
 
The 2024 Producing Lab and Documentary Producing Lab projects and filmmakers are:
 
FICTION TRACK

Eternal Recurrence
Producer: Nancy Degnan
Stage: Development
Logline: A tech magnate and her husband flee to their remote estate when her leaked beta A.I. invention plunges the world and their marriage into turmoil.

Forge
Producers: Liz Daering-Glass
Stage: Post-Production
Logline: Siblings Raymond and Coco Zhang run an art forgery ring. When Miami millionaire Holden coerces them into faking masterpieces, they encounter a web of deceit.

Know Me
Producers: Ronald Baez
Stage: Post-Production
Logline: A grief-stricken Kenson battles a national media frenzy to protect his late brother’s memory, tarnished by the monstrous moniker: “The Miami Zombie.”

Ripe!
Producers: Cookie Walukas
Stage: Development
Logline: Nothing says “it’s complicated” like breaking your crush’s arm.

The Gold Bug Variations
Producers: Namir Khaliq
Stage: Development
Logline: A young scientist sets out to crack the genetic code but is sidetracked when he falls in love with a member of his research team.

When the River Split Open
Producers: Petrus van Staden
Stage: Development
Logline: On a visit to their industrializing ancestral land, Rain risks their tense relationship with their mother to find the truth about their estranged father.
 
 
DOCUMENTARY TRACK

Divia
Producer: Glib Lukianets
Stage: Post-Production
Logline: A visually and sound-driven immersive journey that portrays Ukrainian landscape across three distinct periods: a period of harmony, the unsettling rupture caused by Russian aggression, and the gradual process of its regeneration.

Letters from Home (working title)
Producer: Nicole Tsien
Stage: Development
Logline: A coming-of-adult-age documentary that chronicles a Chaoshan family of three generations experiencing the rise and fall of the Chinese dream in Shenzhen, China’s Silicon Valley.

Nine
Producer: Rajal Pitroda
Stage: Production
After being sent to prison for life at 18, Gerald – also known as “Nine” – met Henry, who raised him into the man he is today. Using the lessons Henry taught him, Gerald organized his way out of prison. Now, Gerald is on a mission to bring his 83-year-old “Pops” home while there’s still time.

Shifted Landscapes
Producer: Annie Marr
Stage: Production
A feature documentary examining the pervasive effects of the climate crisis on the environmental, cultural and psychological landscapes of California. Weaving together a series of observational vignettes, the film visually articulates a larger system of climate change within the state.

A Texas Son
Producer: Chelsea Moore
Stage: Production
The ten-year journey of a father and son as they rediscover each other as their lives intersect with mental health, identity and masculinity – all set against the backdrop of Texas.

Watch the Circus Burn
Producer: Kat Nguyen
Stage: Development
In Watch the Circus Burn, we unload an eclectic clown car into the dusty and sparkling landscape of the American West. The cast of clowns step out of the vehicle and into the spotlight to joyously and publicly celebrate their failure while navigating the great wager of Nevada.
 

ABOUT THE ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a New York based, philanthropic, not-for-profit institution that makes grants in three areas: research in science, technology, and economics; quality and diversity of scientific institutions; and public engagement with science. Sloan’s program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, directed by Doron Weber, supports books, radio, film, television, theater and new media to reach a wide, non-specialized audience and to bridge the two cultures of science and the humanities.

Sloan’s Film Program encourages filmmakers to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers in the popular imagination. Over the past two decades, Sloan has partnered with a dozen leading film schools and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production. The Foundation also supports screenplay development programs with the Sundance Institute, SFFILM, Film Independent, The Black List, the Athena Film Festival, and the Toronto International Film Festival. The Sloan Film Program has supported over 800 film projects and has helped develop over 30 feature films, including Tesla, Radium Girls, Adventures of a Mathematician, One Man Dies a Million Times, The Sound of Silence, To Dust, Operator, The Imitation Game, and The Man Who Knew Infinity. The Foundation has supported feature documentaries such as Vishniac, Join or Die, Werner Herzog’s Theater of Thought, David France’s How to Survive a Pandemic, Picture a Scientist, Coded Bias, In Silico, Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, The Bit Player, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Particle Fever, and Jacques Perrin’s Oceans. It has also given early award recognition to standout films such as The Pod Generation, BlackBerry, Don’t Look Up, After Yang, Linoleum, Son of Monarchs, Ammonite, The Aeronauts, Searching, The Martian, First Man, and Hidden Figures.

The Foundation’s book program includes early support for Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, the best-selling book that became the highest grossing Oscar-nominated film of 2017, and Kai Bird & Martin Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning American Prometheus, adapted for the screen in Christopher Nolan’s hit film Oppenheimer.

For more information about the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, visit sloan.org or follow the Foundation on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at @SloanPublic.
 

ABOUT FILM INDEPENDENT

For 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 in all its forms, and to foster a culture of inclusion. We support a global community of artists and audiences who embody diversity, innovation, curiosity and uniqueness of vision.

In addition to producing the Film Independent Spirit Awards, the organization supports creative professionals with Artist Development programs, grants and labs. Signature mentorship program Project Involve fosters the careers of talented filmmakers from underrepresented communities. Education events and workshops equip filmmakers of all ages and experience levels with tools and resources. Global Media Makers, a cultural exchange program produced in partnership with the U.S. Department of State, provides career-building opportunities for international film professionals. And year-round screening series Film Independent Presents offers a robust program of unique cinematic experiences, including screenings, conversations, Live Reads and Bring the Noise musical events.

For more information or to become a Member, visit filmindependent.org.