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EXCLUSIVE: The Sundance Institute this morning named the eight artists selected as Fellows for the 2024 Edition of their Episodic Lab. They are Miriam Agwai (Midnight Point), Osiris Pichardo Grullón (Majao y Mambo), Fatima Liaqat and Kyle Kubo (You’re Invading My Space), Missy Malek (Plain Sight), Paul Sanchez IV (AV’82), Yancey Wang (South Sea), and Kevin Yang (Best Friend).
Taking place this year at the Sundance Resort in Sundance, Utah from November 8–13, the Episodic Lab was created to unite early-career writers with an original series IP that has not yet been produced, giving them opportunities to work under the guidance of established showrunners and executive producers. While there, fellows will workshop their pilot, pitch their series, and participate in one-on-one story meetings, case study screenings, panels, and writers’ rooms focused on advancing their series concept. They’re also being supported through workshops prior to the lab, as well as Sundance Institute’s yearlong continuum of support.
Creative advisors this year include Daniel Chun (The Simpsons), Nastaran Dibai (Resident Alien), Lee Eisenberg (Lessons in Chemistry), James Wong (American Horror Story), Graham Yost (Slow Horses), Michelle Ashford (Masters of Sex), Elgin James (Mayans M.C.), and Tanya Saracho (Vida). Industry mentors will include Emily Levitan (Netflix), Dante Di Loreto (Fremantle), Sarah Timberman (Timberman-Beverly), Simone Harris (Proximity), Juliana Janes (UCP), Dan Magnante (2AM), Naketha Mattocks (UTV), and Brett Osmon (UTV).
Stated Sundance’s Episodic Program Director, Jandiz Estrada Cardoso, “Imagine a world where people commit magnanimous, radical acts of integrity. Every project this year presents a version of that. Our lab invites the most altruistic mentors and advisors who understand how to support projects that aim to impact global audiences who believe destiny is a decision.”
Last month, the Sundance Institute set 15 nonfiction projects for Sandbox Grants, also unveiling the second cohort for their Building Bridges Fellowship, and selecting 10 early-career artists for their Latine Fellowship & Collab Scholarship. For more information on this year’s Episodic fellows and their projects, read on.
Miriam Agwai with Midnight Point: When a Nigerian immigrant working for an international crime division loses her power to see others’ memories, she will sacrifice everything to remain protected by the organization — even if it means betraying everyone closest to her.
Miriam Agwai is a Nigerian writer, director, and actor focused on telling stories grounded in our shared humanity. Her work has screened at the NewFilmmakers NY, Estes Park Film Festival, and Lady Filmmakers Film Festival. She is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts’ Film BFA program.
Osiris Pichardo Grullón with Majao y Mambo: In the world of competitive Bachata dance, a tenacious yet self-doubting son struggles to revive his father’s venerable but antiquated Latin dance studio while love dwindles, family relations strain, and his pursuits of becoming the next legendary Bachatero fall rapidly out of step.
Osiris Pichardo Grullón is a Dominican writer-director of projects centered on complex family dynamics. Currently, he is the assistant to showrunner Alex Kurtzman on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. An LALIFF Inclusion Fellowship finalist, Grullón is a Wharton/Penn graduate with a film/TV MFA from USC, and he is a nationally competitive Bachata dancer.
Fatima Liaqat and Kyle Kubo with You’re Invading My Space: Zaweela and Hiba, two burnt-out 20-something BFFs, are hitting the road for a cross-country girls trip filled with dollar menu diarrhea, horned-up romance, and self-medicated self-discovery. Then the aliens attack.
Fatima Liaqat and Kyle Kubo met as writer-producers at BuzzFeed. They are 2021 CAPE New Writers fellows who have pitched series to Max, Disney, and more. Their work has been showcased at the UCB theater, in the digital pages of Vice and Vanity Fair, and on their fridge.
Missy Malek with Plain Sight: It’s 1999 — a group of disabled 16-year-old friends from the violent housing estates of Ladbroke Grove can no longer kid themselves about the life prospects available to them. They decide to form a gang and become the best drug dealers in the area. What could go wrong?
Missy Malek, a British actor and filmmaker, completed her undergraduate degree in philosophy at Oxford University. Her short film We’re Too Good For This premiered at the BFI London Film Festival. She starred opposite Ian Mckellen in Hamlet and The Cherry Orchard. She’s currently making her Broadway debut in Romeo + Juliet.
Paul Sanchez IV with AV’82: This hourlong drama follows 15-year-old Romeo, a LatinX punk rocker, and his ad hoc family of AV club outsiders as they battle racism, homophobia, and, later, homelessness, after his ad executive single white mother, Judy, moves their family to her childhood hometown of Darien, Connecticut: an affluent, conservative, lily-white, cisgender, Reagan-era hellhole.
Paul Sanchez IV is a writer-director known for his punk-inspired ethos of “Radical Inclusion and Empathy without Fear.” Unhoused as a teen and whileattending NYU Tisch, Sanchez brings a raw, unfiltered perspective to his work, creating heartfelt stories that resonate with authenticity and grace. He holds an MFA from AFI.
Yancey Wang with South Sea: In 1800s China, when the young bride of an opium merchant is framed for her husband’s murder, she chooses to defy the patriarchy and embrace a lawless life of freedom and adventure on the high seas. Inspired by Ching Shih, the pirate queen of South China Sea.
Yancey Wang is a bilingual Chinese American writer who recently staffed on 20th Television/CBS’s True Lies. A former Disney production executive, she has produced premium content internationally. She is a graduate of AFI’s screenwriting program, and her scripts have won AFI’s Writers’ Room Ready Award and the ScreenCraft Action & Adventure Competition, among others.
Kevin Yang with Best Friend: This half-hour darkly comedic thriller follows a young man as he returns to his hometown to give his estranged childhood best friend a gift in the form of an unusual ultimatum: rekindle their friendship, or die.
Kevin Yang is a Chicago suburb–born Taiwanese American writer whose left-of-center, high-concept comedies center Asian protagonists amid the absurdity of human nature. He has worked on the series Hello Tomorrow and Little America, and his work placed in the Disney Writing Program and the Academy Nicholl Fellowships.
