A pair of filmmakers who we thought struck gold with their Sundance shorts last year (read our top ten short film best of fest piece) in Diffan Sina Norman and Alexandra Qin are among the 11 fellows selected from 3,380 submissions for the upcoming 2025 January Screenwriters Lab. The most established name from the list is Sundance habitual Lana Wilson – who has populated the fest with docus After Tiller, Miss Americana, her two-parter Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields and her narrative debut Look into My Eyes. Her latest project is titled Back Seat.The projects selected for the 2025 January Screenwriters Lab and the artists attending are:
Verano (U.S.A./Mexico): An unruly teenager’s summer plans are upended when his parents decide to foster an adolescent from southern Mexico who is seeking asylum in the United States. As the two teens realize they must share more than just a bedroom, they are forced to confront their differences amid their harsh realities.
Leo Aguirre is a first-generation Mexican American filmmaker and visual artist. His work has received international recognition through film and photography projects spanning the advertising, music video, and narrative landscapes. Verano is his feature film debut.
Little Phnom Penh (Cambodia/U.S.A.): Spanning over two ever-changing decades, from post–Khmer Rouge Phnom Penh to early 2000s California, a Cambodian woman grapples with her identity, family, and love amid profound cultural and historical upheavals.
Chheangkea is a Cambodia-born filmmaker based in Brooklyn. He earned a BS in architecture from MIT and an MFA in filmmaking from NYU. His short film Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites will premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. His short film Skin Can Breathe streams on Max.
The Dispute (U.S.A.): Two best friends from South Central seize the chance to trade in their dead-end lives in Los Angeles for a lucrative opportunity in New York. Recipient of the Sundance Institute Comedy Fellowship.
Andrea Ellsworth is an actor and writer currently in development on her first feature film, The Dispute. Currently, she can be seen starring as Deja in The Vince Staples Show on Netflix.
Kasey Elise Walker, a Black American writer-director-actress from Los Angeles, began as an actress before co-writing The Dispute. Her directorial debut, Hoop Dreams, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival after winning the Soho Script Lab.
Electric Homies (U.S.A.): In a near-future barrio, a Two-Spirit social worker fights to preserve community and culture as thousands in their neighborhood upload themselves to a mysterious digital utopia.
Roberto Fatal is a Mestize Chicana filmmaker from Rarámuri, Genízaro, and Spanish ancestry. Their Queer, Two-Spirit identity informs the genre films they make: stories about mixed humans navigating love, community, and survival on the intersections of time, space, and culture.
Sitora (Malaysia/U.S.A.): A young doctor arrives in a Malay village to establish its first health clinic, but his mandate is soon challenged by an enterprising shaman who operates a protection racket for an elusive half-man, half-tiger. Recipient of the Sundance Institute Horror Fellowship.
Diffan Sina Norman is a Malaysian Iranian filmmaker based in Northeast Texas. His short films Kekasih (2014), Benevolent Ba (2020), and Pasture Prime (2024) have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and SXSW and streamed on platforms like Showtime. He writes and directs at Rangka Pictures.
Thirstygirl (U.S.A.): When Charlie is forced to drive her estranged younger sister cross-country to rehab, her own secret addiction comes to the surface in the most devastating and hilarious ways.
Alexandra Qin is a French Filipino Chinese writer-director with a background in software engineering and prison reform activism. Her first short film, Thirstygirl, was an official selection of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival among 50 other festivals worldwide. She is one of Vimeo’s 10 Breakout Creators of 2024.
Trou Normand (France/U.S.A.): When a middle-aged actress becomes obsessed with digging up a lost Vichy-era heirloom, she unearths something rotten in her family — and in herself.
Chloe Sarbib is an American and French Algerian filmmaker drawn to characters who get in their own way. Her shorts have been supported by Tribeca, the DGA Student Film Awards, and major festivals. An alum of Yale and Columbia’s film MFA, she recently directed on CW/Netflix’s In The Dark.
In Vacuo (Ukraine): A young archaeologist returns to her hometown to sell her missing father’s apartment, but past and present unexpectedly change her plans.
Yelizaveta Smith is a film director and co-founder of Tabor. Her documentary School Number 3, co-directed by George Genoux, won the 2017 Berlinale Generation 14plus International Jury Grand Prix and a Special Award at HumanDOC Festival. She is a member of the Ukrainian Film Academy and European Film Academy.
Eruption (Iceland): In the highlands of Iceland in 1972, a geologist’s wife finds her marriage tested when a wily American student arrives, stirring tensions as volatile as the volcanic landscape. Recipient of the Sundance Institute | Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship.
Katla Sólnes is an Icelandic writer-director who recently graduated with her MFA from Columbia University and has been the recipient of support from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Indian Paintbrush. She is an adjunct assistant professor in screenwriting at Columbia University.
Back Seat (U.S.A.): Maria, a single mother and immigrant, is arrested after leaving her child in the car on a cool day. Losing custody, she embarks on a legal and emotional fight to reunite with her children while grappling with her own complex experience of “good” versus “bad” motherhood, judgment, and forgiveness.
Lana Wilson is an Emmy-winning writer-director. Her acclaimed work includes After Tiller (2013 Sundance Film Festival, Emmy winner), The Departure (2017 Spirit Award nominee), Miss Americana (2020 Sundance Film Festival, Netflix), Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields (2023 Sundance Film Festival, Hulu), and Look Into My Eyes (2024 Sundance Film Festival, A24).
The following artists’ projects were selected for the 2025 Screenwriters Intensive:
Bethiael Alemayoh with I Didn’t Forget You
Sammi Cannold and Safi Rauf with The Homecoming
Karishma Dev Dube with Strangers
Nate Gualtieri with Queerbait
Ward Kamel with If I Die in America
Shehrezad Maher with Theory of Colors
Joanne Mony Park with The Windiest Day
Alisha Tejpal and Mireya Martinez with For the Eyes Are Blind to the Stairwells
Catalina Torres with Anoche Creí Que Nadaba
Melina Valdez with Saca Tu Lengua (Stick Out Your Tongue)