This year, the Athena Writers Lab is offering virtual mentorship, networking opportunities, and peer-to-peer review sessions to the scribes of an adventure pic about an all-women expedition across Antarctica, a dramedy about two women who want to get divorced as their right to be married at all is under attack, a coming-of-age flick set against the riot grrrl movement, and more. A three-day creative development workshop that’s wrapping up today, March 16, the Lab is a supportive environment where emerging women writers can work on their scripts.
Mentors this year include Shari Carpenter (“Queen Sugar”), Jule Selbo (“Hard Promises”), and the head of Through Her Lens: The Tribeca Chanel Women’s Filmmaker Program, Bryce Norbitz.
Six scripts were selected for the Screenwriting Lab. Among them are Kristen A. Golden’s “Awe,” which sees polar explorer Ann Bancroft leading a group of women on a trek across Antarctica, and Lulenoxx’s “Mz. Movies,” the story of an awkward teen discovering a riot grrrl community, and a chosen family, at her local video store. “God Help the Gayes (They’re Getting Divorced),” from Huriyyah Muhammad, follows two women whose crumbling marriage makes headlines as the nation waits for a new Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality. Zoe Simone’s “Havana” is a portrait of an audiologist who returns to her native Cuba to help the CIA investigate attacks at the U.S. embassy.
The Television Writers Lab also chose six scripts for its 2022 edition. They include Oanh-Nhi Nguyen’s “Unacceptable,” about a 30-something Vietnamese-American woman learning to embrace her anger, and Mirella Christou’s “Push It!” which is based on the true story of the creation of the birth control pill. “Silent Woman,” the saga of an ambitious woman director working in 1915 from Christine Garver, is among the TV Lab titles as well.
Details about the Athena Writers Lab projects are below, courtesy of Athena Film Festival. The fest kicked off March 11 and runs through March 20.
Screenwriting
AWE by Kristen A. Golden
No horizon is too far for polar explorer Ann Bancroft, already the first woman to trek to the North Pole. Based on a true story, AWE drops us into Ann’s 1992 quest to lead the first all-women’s expedition across Antarctica. Pulling their sleds 1,700 miles through brutal subzero temperatures and whiteout conditions, Ann and her team must race against time and their critics to complete the trek before the coastal waters freeze, leaving them stranded on the barren continent.
Balancing Acts by Erica Rose
A theatre director on the brink of success begins a toxic, co-dependent relationship with her actress muse in order to cope and avoid the onset of debilitating, hidden, and incurable migraines.
God Help the Gayes (They’re Getting Divorced) by Huriyyah Muhammad
God Help the Gayes (They’re Getting Divorced), is a dramedy about two women going through an incredibly difficult period in their marriage and development as human beings, while society at large offers their opinions on whether they should even have the right to be married at all. As the world awaits a new ruling from the Supreme Court that could potentially reverse marriage equality across the country, local celebrities Rosa and Pamela Gaye are thrust into the limelight when news leaks of their potential divorce. With their rights in jeopardy and their allies in a frenzy, they comically commit to four ‘love it or lose it’ sessions with Dr. Francis, a dubiously intentioned marriage guru. Through it all, they must make a choice that despite the obstacles to keep on living, keep growing, keep loving – unconditionally. But will they choose to do it together? God Help the Gayes (They’re Getting Divorced)…aren’t they?
HAVANA by Zoe Simone
Mia, a Cuban audiologist now living in Miami, returns to her home country to aid the CIA in investigating the sonic “Havana Syndrome” attacks occurring at the U.S. embassy. Based on true events.
In My Father’s House by Abbesi Akhamie
Anna is a Nigerian-American woman who travels to Nigeria for the first time in hopes of reconnecting with her estranged father after the death her mother. When her father mysteriously disappears on the eve of his wedding, Anna goes in search of him with her father’s driver Bode. Unexpectedly, this journey leads her to new self-discovery and acceptance.
Mz. Movies by Lulenoxx
In the summer of 2001, Ami, an awkward preteen, spends her summer trying to catalog every film available at her local video rental store. Little does she know, this queer owned business is a gathering place for the local riot grrrl community, where Ami is able to discover herself and find a chosen family.
Television Writers
Goodnight Nobody by Anna Holmes
What does it mean to be an artist? A woman? A partner and lover? And how does a woman navigate these and other identities in a society in which women are expected to marry young, become mother to many, and subsume their own artistic and sexual desires in a search for (and in service of) outdated ideas of femininity? Set in 1930s and 40s New York, Goodnight Nobody explores all these ideas and more through the real-life story of Margaret Wise Brown, the bestselling, wild and wooly author and poet who, influenced by works of modernist literature and painting, elevated children’s literature to an art form.
Public Health by Myra Aquino
A disgraced surgeon is forced to take on a temporary job at the decrepit Public Health Department of West Palm Beach, Florida, and must figure out how to get her old job back. –PUBLIC HEALTH is a half-hour comedy television series about Judy, an arrogant, competitive surgeon who– after a humiliating public incident– is fired from her hospital and forced to take on a job in the much-maligned Public Health Department of West Palm Beach, Florida. From there, she meets her colleagues— a motley crew of misguided, incompetent workers— who she must lead and guide in order to improve the department’s reputation, and therefore her own. She does all this in order to get her old job back as a successful orthopedic surgeon at a prestigious hospital in Miami. In the course of the TV pilot and the rest of the series, the department gets caught in a number of public health-related shenanigans, but Judy ultimately learns what it means to be a leader and a team player, and what it means to compromise and work with the community in order to improve health outcomes at a population level. Along the way, she develops meaningful friendships with her co-workers and learns to love herself for who she is, and not for her status or her intelligence.
Push It! by Mirella Christou
Push It! is the story of an under-the-radar women’s rights activist who fights an uphill battle with heavy personal costs to finance and orchestrate the creation of the revolutionary birth control pill. It is based on true events.
Silent Women by Christine Garver
In Hollywood’s infancy, 1915, a relentless female director vies for power, social change, and artistic triumph as she attempts to outrun the encroaching male domination of the industry.
UNACCEPTABLE by Oanh-Nhi Nguyen
A 33-year-old Vietnamese-American woman feels unfulfilled and learns to befriend her anger to discover her life purpose.
Yellow Cloud by Micole Williams
Explore how an instinctive and passionate Native American student at a Historically Black College & University emerges as a detective determined to solve a scandalous mystery hovering over a small Texas town.
