The Sundance Institute has unveiled the fellows selected for its 2026 Screenwriters Lab and Screenwriters Intensive, continuing its long-running mission to support emerging filmmakers developing their first and second feature films.
Chosen from more than 3,800 submissions, 11 projects will take part in the annual January Screenwriters Lab, held January 17–21 at Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah, where the Institute’s lab program began in 1981. The 2026 edition also serves as a tribute to founder Robert Redford and his legacy of championing independent voices.
Led by Michelle Satter and Ilyse McKimmie, the lab brings writers together for an intensive, advisor-driven development process. This year’s creative advisors include an accomplished group of filmmakers and writers, including Barry Jenkins, Meg LeFauve, Lulu Wang, Scott Frank, and Michael Arndt, among others.
“We’re excited to champion this new cohort of bold filmmakers developing their original stories in our January Screenwriters Lab,” said Satter. “These 11 fellows will hone their screenwriting skills while immersed in the collaborative creative community we envisioned and established to sustain the future of independent filmmakers. Following the lab, we are fully committed to supporting their journey from script to screen, ensuring that their powerful, human stories in all genres are celebrated and connect with audiences around the world.”
In addition, the Screenwriters Intensive will take place online March 5–6, supporting nine projects by 13 writers developing their first narrative features. Past participants in the program include filmmakers behind titles such as Cassandro, The Starling Girl, Monsters and Men, and Mutt.
“The artists and projects included in this year’s Screenwriters Intensive comprise an impressively wide range of singular perspectives and storytelling styles,” said McKimmie. “What they have in common is unforgettable cinematic vision, and we couldn’t be more excited to support them every step of the way on the journey of bringing their films to life.”
The Institute also highlighted the long-term impact of its Feature Film Program, which has supported early work by filmmakers including Ryan Coogler, Chloé Zhao, Nia DaCosta, Quentin Tarantino, and Robert Eggers.
Five Feature Film Program–supported projects are set to premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, with additional alumni debuting new work and past lab-supported films featured in the Park City Legacy section. Several recent alumni films have also earned major international recognition at Cannes.
The projects selected for the 2026 January Screenwriters Lab and the artists attending are:
The Queue — Venice-winning filmmaker Sarah Friedland adapts Vladimir Sorokin’s absurdist novel into a surreal, three-day fable about need, want, and waiting.
Love Person — Playwright and TV writer Aditi Brennan Kapil makes her feature debut with an unconventional romance sparked by a mistaken email exchange.
Rounds — Sundance Ignite fellow Taylor Sanghyun Lee explores faith, forgiveness, and deportation within a Korean American church community.
Black Snake — Zimbabwean filmmaker Naishe Nyamubaya tells a mythic family drama triggered by a mysterious tree and buried cultural identity.
The Terrible Child — Toronto filmmaker Bec Pecaut crafts a coming-of-age portrait of grief, sexuality, and family during a teenager’s final months with her dying father.
Attachment (Bluey Is the Warmest Color) — Emmy-winning Last Week Tonight writer Joanna Rothkopf delivers an erotic thriller about obsession, motherhood, and children’s fame.
Dance Monkey Dance — Filmmaker Philip Thompson deconstructs 2000s comedy culture through a found-footage portrait of a Black comic consumed by fame.
yellowwood — Multidisciplinary artist George Watsky imagines a radical tech experiment allowing a couple to live two futures at once.
Clear-Cut — Seattle writer-director Cecelia Wheeler sends estranged siblings on a road trip toward reconciliation and reckoning.
Black Harvest — Palestinian British filmmaker Said Zagha’s debut feature follows a father’s descent into violence after the loss of his son.
BAOBAO — Sundance alum Renee Zhan blends horror and family drama as a daughter returns home to discover something deeply wrong with her new baby brother.
Screenwriters Intensive (same treatment)
CACS — Filmmakers Nicole Daddona and Adam Wilder animate two desert cacti navigating the strange rituals of human life.
Hatepark — DePaul MFA graduate Julien Figueroa captures queer boyhood, skate culture, and identity during a Florida summer in 2000.
Floridaland — Artist-filmmaker Allison Janae Hamilton weaves myth, empathy, and landscape in a story set between college life and a fading family casino.
Khutbah — Somali American filmmaker Gulet Isse explores faith, sexuality, and ambition through a Muslim teen torn between art and tradition.
Stem — Sloan fellow Daeil Kim and writer Don Cabreana expose the dark underbelly of a supposed stem-cell miracle cure.
Swayneos — Esteban Pedraza examines immigration, performance, and identity through a mail-order bride reinventing herself for America.
Badstar — Artists Matthew Rosenbaum and Nicolette Johnson intertwine queerness and cosmic anxiety amid the fallout of the Columbia space disaster.
Amerigirl — Sundance Ignite fellow Samina Saifee tells a tender coming-of-age story set at a summer camp for Muslim girls.
Río Masacre — Sylvie Weber and Anouk Shad blend mysticism and history along the Dominican-Haitian border through a teen’s awakening.
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