Meet the next generation of American indie producers in fiction and the docu field. Today the Sundance Institute announced the producers selected for the upcoming Producers Labs (narrative it actually began today until the 19th) and the documentary producers then have their time in the sun from July 20th to the 25th. Advisors heading off to Clearmont, Wyoming to join the cohorts are Feature Film Producers Lab people Allison Rose Carter (I Love Boosters), Deniese Davis (One of Them Days), Eugene Pikulin (Bruns Brennan Berry Pikulin & Jacobs PC), Lucas Joaquin (Death of a Unicorn), and Peter Saraf (The Farewell). The Documentary Producers Lab advisors are Andrea Meditch (Grizzly Man), Gema Juárez Allen (The Castle), Rémi Grellety (Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat), Darcy McKinnon (Natchez), and Lance Kramer (Holding Liat). We’d so love to be a fly on the wall here.
Feature Film Program
Jaelyn Ellis with Likeness (U.S.A.): When a Black San Francisco tech worker is laid off after AI replaces his job, he hires a white actor to impersonate him in job interviews, only to discover the stand-in has plans of his own.
Jaelyn Ellis, 2026 Mark Silverman Honor awardee, is an NYC-based producer. She has a proven record as a line producer and unit production manager. Under Craft House Pictures, she’s produced shorts that have screened at ShortFest, HollyShorts, and NewFest, and is currently in post-production on her debut feature as a lead producer.
Kara Grace Miller with Make Me a Pizza (U.S.A.): After an affair with a pizza guy unleashes a Pizza Goddess, a hungry woman seizes a chance to escape her unfulfilling life. In this adaptation of the viral short film, she makes a pact to feed the deity more delivery men, until an unholy pregnancy threatens to expose her secret.
Kara Grace Miller has produced narrative work screened at SXSW, Beyond Fest, and Sitges Film Festival, as well as documentary work included in CAFilm’s educational programming and two presidential campaigns. She’s an alum of BendFilm: Basecamp and the Frontières Market Shorts to Features Lab at Fantasia.
Natalie Remplakowski with Sweetwater (U.S.A.): A rural Texas teen’s last summer in her hometown is upended when she suspects she’s been sexually assaulted at a friend’s ranch party. As the daughter of a retired rodeo star, she must decide whether to pursue justice at the cost of being ostracized by her beloved community.
Natalie Remplakowski is a Polish Canadian producer with Citrine Productions, where she champions auteur-driven films with international reach. An NYU Tisch alum, her associate and producing work has screened at the Sundance Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival, and Cannes. In 2026, she premiered the feature Seahorse at SXSW.
Marie Alyse Rodriguez with How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water (U.S.A.): After losing her factory job, Cara Romero, a proud Dominican immigrant in her late 50s, must rebuild her life. Shaken by her sister’s impending move and desperate to reconnect with her estranged son, she struggles to find her place in a changing city. Adapted from the acclaimed novel of the same name.
Marie Alyse Rodriguez is an LA-based Mexican producer and development executive whose work is grounded in building films with care, intention at every step, and long-term vision. She is drawn to filmmakers whose work is rooted in lived experience and emotional honesty. The project was developed in partnership with the late Edgar Lacey Rosa, who was selected alongside Marie for the Lab and Fellowship.
Sean Weiner with The End of All Rivers (U.S.A.): In a rapidly changing Montana valley, an injured logger resorts to contract killing to pay for his father’s medical care. As outside investors threaten his home and his livelihood, he is forced to contend with the end of a way of life.
Sean Weiner is an Emmy‑nominated producer and editor based in New York’s Hudson Valley. He recently produced and edited Adam Meeks’ debut, Union County, which premiered in U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Weiner is a co‑founder of the filmmaker support organization UFO.
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Documentary Film Program
Chelsea Hernandez with The School of Hope (Mexico, U.S.A.): At the U.S.-Mexico border, where cartel violence and U.S. policy collide, a one‑room school inside a migrant shelter becomes a lifeline for three asylum‑seeking children and the founders who risk everything to keep it open.
Chelsea Hernandez is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and storyteller whose work centers on community, representation, and social justice. She has directed and produced award-winning documentaries, including Building the American Dream (PBS) and Breaking the News (Independent Lens).
Vero Kompalic with Yosi (Mexico, U.S.A.): After his beloved grandmother’s death, queer undocumented poet and playwright Yosimar Reyes inherits her dream of reverse migration to Mexico, forcing him to confront where he truly belongs.
Vero Kompalic is a Venezuelan filmmaker and founder of DISCORDIA. Her work has been recognized by festivals and institutions, including Locarno, Tribeca, the Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, Berlinale, La Biennale, The Gotham, DOC NYC, Habitar el Cine, and other international platforms.
Hansen Lin with God Lives Here (India, U.S.A.): As ecological crisis ravages an ancient Indian village, its people confront loss, faith, and fragile dreams, while a folk theater artist revives their bond with the god of nature.
Hansen Lin is a New York–based Chinese filmmaker and creative producer. Drawn to auteur-driven, art house cinema, he works from intuition and cross-cultural sensitivity, partnering with creatives to find a story’s emotional and visual core and make space for Asian and diasporic voices.
Julia Pontecorvo with Unfiltered (working title) (U.S.A): In a poetic blend of reality and imagination, a vivacious Brooklyn teenager strives to reclaim her own fleeting childhood while helping raise her four younger sisters. Through her original poetry, she conjures a world where Black girls get to simply be kids.
Julia Pontecorvo is a creative producer. Her work spans documentary, branded content, and experiential, including Going Varsity in Mariachi, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023. At Firelight Media, she has led programs supporting filmmakers from underrepresented communities. She was a 2020 Impact Partners fellow.
Cherrelle Swain with Southmont Drive (U.S.A.): After losing their grandfather’s home in Tuskegee, Alabama, the Lewis-Green family retraces sites of memory across the South, blending vérité, archival footage, and intimate conversations to explore home, inheritance, Black land loss, and family legacy.
Cherrelle Swain is a documentary producer and founder of Terra Rossa, a community-centered production company focused on social justice. Her work centers ancestry, identity, healing, and impact. Credits include Black Boys, In Due Season, and Southmont Drive.