FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Seanna Hore, Ginsberg/Libby
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Gladys Santos, Ginsberg/Libby
gladys.santos@ginsberglibby.com
 

LOS ANGELES (August 14, 2024) – Film Independent, the nonprofit arts organization celebrating 40 years of the Spirit Awards, announced the eight writers selected for the 2024 Episodic Lab. Honey Ahmad, Mayanka Goel, Eunice Lau, Kyle Lau, Christian Moldes, V.T. Nayani, Paige Wood and Pallavi Yetur were chosen for the intensive program which runs from August 12th through the 23rd, designed to provide individualized story and career development for writers with original pilots for television.

This year’s Episodic Lab is a two-week in-person program that helps to further the careers of its Fellows by introducing them to industry veterans who offer guidance on both the craft and business of writing episodic content. Through personalized feedback from experienced showrunners, creative producers and executives, Fellows will gain the tools to revise and refine their pilots and navigate a changing industry landscape. A final networking and pitch event will offer Fellows the opportunity to introduce themselves and their work to studio and network executives.

“We’re proud to welcome these exciting new voices into the Episodic Lab whose work explores varied themes including grief, identity, sexuality and societal expectations in bold and inventive ways” said Dea Vazquez, Associate Director of Fiction Programs. “We’re thrilled to be able to support these writers both in the program and throughout their careers.”

The Episodic Lab Creative Advisors and Guest Speakers include Sheryl J. Anderson, Liliane Bedford, KJ Booze, Cindy Fang, Chuck Hayward, Hieu Ho, Naomi Iwamoto, Sahar Jahani, Henry “Hank” Jones, Kelly Kulchak, Marvin Lemus, Patrick Magill, Nate Matteson, Marc Mounier, Van B. Nguyen, Dawn Prestwich, Loretta Ramos, Beth Schacter, Ellen Shanman, Rebecca Sonnenshine, Sheila Hanahan Taylor, Ligiah Villalobos and Nicole Yorkin.

As Founding Sponsor, Netflix is deeply committed to supporting each year’s selected Fellows, pairing each Fellow with a Netflix executive who will serve as their Industry Advisor, and providing them with opportunities to learn from showrunners helming Netflix shows. This unique access to a premiere entertainment company like Netflix is a crucial step in helping the Fellows move forward in their careers.

Film Independent is excited to award this year’s Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant to Mayanka Goel, who will receive a $20,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to support the development of their pilot, The Feather Detective, through the Episodic Lab. Awarded to outstanding writers whose screenplays integrate science or technology themes and characters into dramatic stories, the Sloan Episodic Lab Grant is part of the Foundation’s nationwide film program to advance public understanding of science and technology.

Past Episodic Lab Fellows include April Shih, who has written on FX’s Fargo, Dave, Mrs. America and You’re the Worst, and struck an overall deal at FX Productions; Kimi Lee, who wrote on Amazon’s Expats, Apple’s The Morning Show, and sold her show $ugar in a four-way bidding war to Hulu; Henry “Hank” Jones, who has written on ABC’s Will Trent and Apple’s Truth Be Told; KD Dávila, who has written on CBS’ Salvation and Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem; Stephanie Adams-Santos, who has written on The CW’s Two Sentence Horror Stories; Van B. Nguyen, who is a writer on CBS’ Blue Bloods; and Eddie Quintana, who has written on Fox’s Duncanville, ABC’s Not Dead Yet and NBC’s Lopez vs Lopez.

Film Independent Artist Development programs promote unique independent voices by helping filmmakers create and advance new work through Project Involve, the Documentary Producing Lab, Documentary Story Lab, Episodic Lab, Episodic Directing Intensive, Screenwriting Lab, Producing Lab, Fast Track finance market and Fiscal Sponsorship, as well as through grants and awards that provide over one million dollars annually to visual storytellers.

For more information on any of the Labs, or the projects that have been developed in them, please contact artistdevelopment@filmindependent.org. Additional information can be found at filmindependent.org.

The Film Independent Episodic Lab is supported by Netflix and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
 

The Episodic Lab participants and their projects are:

 
A-Town Boyz
Writers: Honey Ahmad, Eunice Lau
Logline: When two Asian-American teens in Atlanta turn to petty crime to fund their rap star dreams, they unwittingly get caught up in a turf war between local rival gangs, all while trying to keep up appearances that they are still on board with their parent’s expectations.

Margarita
Writer: Christian Moldes
Logline: Margarita, a cursed spirit conjured up by her grieving mother, is tasked with collecting as many souls as possible in order to become human once again.

Motherland
Writer: Pallavi Yetur
Logline: An Indian-American doctor who dreams of being a Hollywood actor is in over her head when she finally lands a part in a movie… in Bollywood. Now she must juggle dodging her disapproving mother and figuring out this unfamiliar (and musical!) world.

sadboi
Writer: Kyle Lau
Logline: Perpetually in his feelings, sadboi navigates love and life while trying to get over his ex, who cheated on him with his mom’s hot murderer.

Shame
Writers: V.T. Nayani, Paige Wood
Logline: Shame is a comedy-drama series that follows ANJU, a 30-something South Asian-Caribbean woman, who suddenly develops vaginismus after a pap test gone wrong. Through an obstacle course of comically painful turns, she must navigate the intricacies of sex, shame and societal expectations, after being diagnosed with a rarely-discussed, quietly-kept medical condition.

The Feather Detective
Writer: Mayanka Goel
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship Awardee
Logline: A young woman struggles with 1960s societal expectations till she meets Roxie Laybourne and together they solve the mystery of America’s deadliest aviation disaster.
 

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.