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.
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