Sundance Institute has selected eight artists for the second annual Women at Sundance Adobe Fellowship. Variety confirms that Deborah Esquenazi (“Southwest of Salem”), McKenzie Chinn (“Olympia”), Melody Cooper (“Two Sentence Horror Stories”), Cris Gris (“Pia & Mike”), Meryam Joobeur (“Born in the Maelstrom”), Rajal Pitroda (“Down a Dark Stairwell”), Shaandiin Tome (“Mud (Hashtł’ishnii)”), and Malika Zouhali-Worrall (“Thank You For Playing”) will each receive a year of mentorship from Sundance Institute and Adobe, a $6,250 cash grant, and a one-year subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud.
Launched last year, the fellowship aims to support women, particularly women from underrepresented communities, creating bold work in film and media. Jiayan “Jenny” Shi (“Finding Yingying”) was among the inaugural class.
“We’re excited to announce our new group of cross-disciplinary artists, supporting storytellers working in documentary, fiction, and episodic formats,” said Michelle Satter, founding senior director of artist programs at Sundance Institute. “This year-long fellowship will provide bespoke professional and creative development designed to advance their singular projects and burgeoning careers.”
Women at Sundance Adobe fellows will participate in workshops, receive coaching and professional referrals, be introduced to industry contacts and advisers, and take part in quarterly group check-ins. “Each fellow is also participating in a Sundance Institute Lab or program aligning with their career path,” per the source.
Sundance Institute has also recently announced the participants of its first Producers and Trans Possibilities Intensives. The former provides support to emerging producers from underrepresented communities, and the latter is designed to advance transgender storytellers and their projects.
Bios for the 2021 Women at Sundance Adobe fellows are below, courtesy of Variety.
McKenzie Chinn is a filmmaker, actor, and poet based in Chicago. She is the writer and lead actor of Olympia, which won the Audience Award at the 2019 Bentonville Film Festival. She has appeared on screen, including in the upcoming series The Big Leap, as well as onstage with Goodman and Steppenwolf Theatres, The Second City, and others. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she is part of Growing Concerns Poetry Collective whose releases include two albums and the poetry collection Five Fifths. She is a 2020 Sundance Institute Launch Grant Fund Recipient and a 2021 Sundance Institute Screenwriters and Directors Lab Fellow.
Most recently story editor on the 22nd season of NBCUniversal’s Law & Order: SVU, Melody Cooper was previously staff writer on Stage 13’s Two Sentence Horror Stories, now on Netflix. A 2021 Sundance Institute Episodic Lab Fellow and 2019 HBO Access Writing Fellow, Melody has been named one of the Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch in 2021 by ISA. An award-winning playwright, Melody received a Ford Foundation grant to develop her Rwanda play Sweet Mercy. Melody also writes the comic book OMNI (Vol. 2: Issues #5 – 10). Her next project is a soon to be announced feature for Netflix.
Deborah Esquenazi is a two-time Emmy-nominated, Peabody-winning director, screenwriter, and investigative reporter. Her debut documentary, Southwest of Salem, helped exonerate the “San Antonio Four” from their wrongful convictions. She was a 2020 Sundance Institute Momentum Fellow for her feature, A Killing on Park, a thriller also based on Esquenazi’s original investigative work. She is the creator of the podcast, A Feminist History of Crime, now in development.
Cris Gris is a Mexican filmmaker whose films have screened internationally in prestigious festivals, including La Semaine de la Critique, Festival de Cannes. She’s known for moving between acting, writing, and directing, and landed her first leading role in the feature independent drama Fish Bones (2018). Her short San Miguel (2018) received the Spike Lee Film Production Fund, the HFPA Fellows Fund, and was named a 2019 NBR student grant winner. Her short Pia & Mike (2019) premiered at Morelia International Film Festival. Gris is a Film Independent Project Involve 2020 fellow, a 2021 Sundance Institute Screenwriters and Directors Lab Fellow. Forward will be her feature directorial debut.
Meryam Joobeur is an Academy Award nominated Tunisian director, based in Montréal, Canada. Her work includes both documentary and fiction. Her short films Gods, Weeds and Revolutions (2012) and Born in the Maelstrom (2017), starring Sasha Lane, screened internationally. Her academy nominated Short Brotherhood (2018) screened at 150+ festivals and won 75 international prizes.
She is co-owner of the Tunisia based production company Instinct Bleu with producer Sarra Ben Hassen and is currently developing her first feature project Motherhood. She is 2021 Sundance Institute January Screenwriters Lab Fellow.
Rajal Pitroda is a producer of fiction and non-fiction film whose work tackles issues of race, class and gender beyond the mainstream narrative. She most recently produced Down a Dark Stairwell, a feature documentary that premiered at the 2020 True/False Film Festival and was broadcast on Independent Lens. She is a 2020-2021 Sundance Institute Creative Producing Fellow, was a Black Public Media 360 Incubator Fellow, a Resident at SFFILM FilmHouse, and an Impact Producer Fellow with Firelight Media. Prior to producing, Rajal was the Founder/CEO of Cinevention, a media company focused on film marketing and distribution.
Shaandiin Tome is a Diné filmmaker from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her breakout, award-winning short film Mud (Hashtł’ishnii) premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2018 and premiered around the world, putting her on the map as a writer/director. While working on her path as a narrative filmmaker, she has directed multiple narrative-shifting short documentaries. Her unique outlook allows her to capture other trailblazers in the indigenous community, both as a director and cinematographer. She aims to bring resonating imagery in convergence with story, illustrating her perspective as a Diné woman. She was selected for the 2020 Sundance Institute Intensive for Indigenous Artists as well as the 2020 WIF x Sundance Institute Financing and Strategy Intensive.
Malika Zouhali-Worrall is a British/Afro-Arab filmmaker based in New York. An Emmy Award-winning director, her directing credits include the feature-length documentaries, Call Me Kuchu (Berlinale, Netflix, BBC World, 2012) and Thank You For Playing (Tribeca, POV/ITVS, News & Television Emmy Award, 2015), the web series Earn A Living (ARTE, IDFA, 2018), and the PBS American Masters short film, Strange Grace: The Art of Amyra León (2020). In 2021, Malika completed her fifth short, Video Visit, which will be released by Field of Vision, and screen at BAM Cinemafest and Blackstar. Malika was a 2020 Sundance Institute Momentum Fellow.
