Sundance Institute’s 2012 January Screenwriters Lab: Mulloy, Uricaru and Mansbach Among 12 Selected

The week before the beast known as Sundance gets unleashed, 12 projects and their writers/directors will hit the Sundance Resort in Utah and get to work with such names as Lisa Cholodenko, Nicole Holofcener and Joachim Trier on what they hope will one day become feature film projects. This year appears to have more stories that go beyond U.S. borders and worth noting several of the mentioned lab attendees have a bit more “clout”. Among the dozen, we have helmer Jonas Carpignano who’ll be basing his feature on his award-winning short, A Chjàna (which won at the Venice Film Festival, we’ve got Ioana Uricaru (one of the filmmaker contributors on Cristian Mungiu’s Tales From the Golden Age) who’ll work from a U.S./Romanian perspective. David Lowery who was featured in Filmmaker Mag’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film of 2011, who I think has a legitimate shot at attracting some fine folk with Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and actress Marielle Heller will adapt Phoebe Gloeckner’s Diary of a Teenage Girl. Worth highlighting is Daniel Mulloy (see pic above) who I had the chance to interview in Park City last January is making the big leap forward into feature filmmaking after a brilliant resume of award-winning short films. Arta Dobroshi (Dardenne’s Lorna’s Silence) is pegged to star in Mitrovica. Of the twelve projects, ten are from writer-directors while a pair are from scribe-onlys – and worth noting is the inclusion of Adam Mansbach’s whose Go the Fuck to Sleep, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. His lab project, We’re Entertainment is among the many writing projects the author is involved with.

Here’s the complete list of 2012 January Screenwriters Lab Fellows and Projects:

Jonas Carpignano (writer/director) / A Chjàna (Italy/U.S.A.):
After leaving his native Burkina Faso in search of a better life,
Ayiva makes the perilous journey to Italy; though he finds compatriots
along the way, they are unprepared for the intolerance facing
immigrants in their newly-claimed home.

Jonas Carpignano is an Italian-American filmmaker currently based in
New York City and Rome. While raised and educated in New York, he has
spent periods of time in Italy where he began his career working as an
assistant director. Since enrolling at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts,
Carpignano has made several short films that have screened in numerous
prestigious festivals throughout the world. Recently, he was awarded
the Martin Scorsese Young Filmmaker Award, and his latest short film A Chjàna won the Controcampo Award for Best Short Film at the 68th Venice Film Festival.

Ioana Uricaru (writer/director) / After the Wedding (U.S.A./Romania):
Mara, a Romanian immigrant with a young son, soon discovers her recent
marriage to an American is not enough to secure their place in the
country. As she learns more about the system, an unfamiliar culture,
and her husband, she must decide how far she will go to preserve her
new family.

Ioana Uricaru was born and raised in Romania, relocating to Los Angeles in 2001. She co-directed the Romanian omnibus Tales From the Golden Age (Official Selection, 2009 Cannes Film Festival) and her short film Stopover premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. In addition to After the Wedding, Uricaru is currently developing the feature Paperclip, which was a recipient of the 2011 Sundance/Sloan Commissioning Grant.

David Lowery (writer/director) / Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (U.S.A.): Embracing the atmosphere and tone of a modern-day Western, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints tells the story of an outlaw who escapes from prison and sets out
across the Texas countryside to reunite with his wife and the daughter
he never met.

David Lowery is a filmmaker from Texas. His work, including the award-winning short film Pioneer,
has screened and won awards at film festivals around the world,
including Sundance, SXSW, Festival Internacional de Cortos FIB (Spain),
and Ashland Independent Film Festival. Filmmaker Magazine named him one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2011.

Marielle Heller (writer/director) / Diary of a Teenage Girl (U.S.A.):
In the haze of 1970’s San Francisco, a teenage artist with a brutally
honest perspective tries to navigate her way through an affair with her
mother’s boyfriend. Adapted from the graphic novel by Phoebe
Gloeckner.

Marielle Heller is a New York based screenwriter, actor and playwright. Her theatrical production of The Diary of a Teenage Girl premiered
in New York City in 2010 at 3LD in association with New Georges. Along
with writing partner Caitlin Goldberg-Meehan, Heller has written a
pilot for ABC titled The Big Apple, and is developing a movie
for the Disney Channel. As an actor, she has performed in theatre all
over the world, including at Berkeley Rep, The Barbican in London,
Birmingham Rep, Soho Rep, San Diego Rep, and Magic Theater.

Ryan Coogler (writer/director) / Fruitvale (U.S.A.): Fruitvale is the true story of Oscar, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who
crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last
day of 2008.

A filmmaker from the Bay Area, Ryan Coogler spent most of his life
dodging tackles on the football field before discovering a love for
making movies in college. After earning a degree in Finance from
Sacramento State, he headed south to attend USC’s MFA program, where he
made several award-winning short films including Locks (Tribeca Film Festival, Dana and Albert Broccoli Award for Filmmaking Excellence), Gap (Jack Nicholson Award for Achievement in Directing), and Fig (HBO Short Filmmaking Award, DGA Student Filmmaker Award). After
graduating, he returned home to Richmond, California, where he works as
a guidance counselor for juvenile delinquents.

Chloé Zhao (writer/director) / Lee (U.S.A):
As his two best friends plan to leave for college, a Lakota teen
wonders if his future on the reservation is pre-ordained when a tragedy
forces him to take dangerous action to protect his family.

Chloé Zhao is an MFA thesis candidate at NYU’s Graduate Film Program. Her short film Daughters premiered at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival
and won Best Student Live Action Short at the Palm Springs
International ShortFest. Zhao was raised in China and England and
currently lives in Brooklyn.

Susanna Fogel (co-writer/director) and Joni Lefkowitz (co-writer) / Life Partners (U.S.A.):
A straight girl drunkenly promises her lesbian best friend she won’t
get married until gay marriage is legal – a promise that becomes
awkward when her boyfriend proposes and her friend remains a slacker
who’s years away from even thinking about marriage.

Susanna Fogel and Joni Lefkowitz have co-written several scripts for film and television, most notably The Washingtonienne for HBO, What Was I Thinking? for New Line and Lynda Obst Productions, and an original web series for Warner Brothers entitled Joni and Susanna, which Lefkowitz produced and Fogel directed. They are currently developing an independent comedy It Is What It Is, which is set to star Evan Rachel Wood, Olivia Thirlby and Sigourney Weaver.

Daniel Mulloy (writer/director) / Mitrovica (Great
Britan/Kosova): In post-war Kosova, an Albanian woman scavenges with
her young son; when she is approached by a Serbian stranger, she
doesn’t realize his offer of help will ultimately tear her life apart.

Daniel Mulloy’s short films, including Baby, Dad, and Antonio’s Breakfast, have
premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and between them won over
ninety international awards, including several BAFTAs, a BIFA and a
European Academy Award nomination. In addition to Mitrovica, Mulloy is currently developing the feature film A Cold Day with Focus Features; both films will star Arta Dobroshi.

Logan Kibens (co-writer/director) and Sharon Greene (co-writer) / Operator (U.S.A.):
In this existential comedy, when a programmer is hired to create the
ideal personality for an automated call center, his attempts to
quantify what it means to be human throws his life into chaos.

Logan Kibens has written and directed over 50 short films. She was
awarded the 2011 HBO/DGA Directing Fellowship and was selected as one of
Film Independent’s 2011 Project:Involve fellows after completing her
CalArts thesis film, Recessive. The short has screened
nationally and internationally at film festivals including Outfest,
Frameline, Reeling, and Zinegoak, among others. Kibens worked as a
commercial editor for eight years, and is an award-winning projections
designer for theatre and dance.

Sharon Greene is a Chicago playwright turned screenwriter. Her play, Fake Lake, was on the
Best Plays of 2008 list of both Time Out Chicago and The Chicago Tribune,
and was supported by a grant from the NEA. A recent graduate of USC’s
Writing for Screen and Television program, her original television
pilot Cherryland was nominated for the Student Humanitas Prize for Drama. 

Pengfei Song (writer/director) / Underground Fragrances (China):
As Beijing races to keep up with China’s growth, and its poor are
pushed underground to live in crude tunnels, a young migrant worker
finds community and compassion, putting a human face on China’s rapid
development.

Pengfei Song was born into a family of Peking Opera performers in
Beijing. After graduating from high school, he went to Paris to study
film directing at L’Institute International Image et du Son. Upon his
return, he discovered a new China, which inspired him to develop Underground Fragrances to
reflect the changing lives of the people of Beijing. The project,
which will be his first feature, was selected for Cinemart and the
TorinoFilmLab in 2011.

Etienne Kallos (writer/director) / Vrystaat (Free State) (South Africa): Set during the annual corn harvest in the Free State, Vrystaat explores the rites of passage into manhood for a new generation as they
navigate identity and sexuality within the fractured realm of
post-Colonial Africa.

Etienne Kallos is a Greek/South African filmmaker with an MFA in
film directing from NYU. His work has screened at festivals worldwide,
including Sundance, Cannes, Berlin, and Telluride. His film Eersgeborene was the first Afrikaans-language film to be awarded a Lion for Best
Short Film at the 2009 Venice Film Festival. He recently developed Vrystaat at the Cannes Cinefondation Residence program in Paris.

Adam Mansbach (writer) / We’re Entertainment (U.S.A.):
On the Gulf Coast of Florida, a failed actress working as a children’s
party entertainer shows the new guy the ropes; together they share a
day that changes them both in unexpected ways.

Adam Mansbach’s most recent book, Go the Fuck to Sleep, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. His novels include The End of the Jews, winner of the California Book Award, and Angry Black White Boy, which is taught at more than a hundred universities. His work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, GQ, Esquire, The Believer, and on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. He has a graphic novel and two other novels forthcoming, as well as a sitcom in development at CBS.