Sundance Institute Announces 2023 Latine Fellows, Collab Scholarship Recipients
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- Category: Entertainment News
- Published on Wednesday, 06 September 2023 14:56
- Written by A&E Contributing Editor
The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced the recipients of the 2023 Latine Fellowship and Collab Scholarship, launched last year to meaningfully expand Latine representation in independent media. The program will provide fellowships and scholarships these Latine artists.
The program will also offer professional development and networking opportunities. Recipients will gain special access to Sundance Collab, Sundance Institute's digital learning space for artists to learn from experts and build a global community.
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"In its sophomore year, the Latine Fellowship and Scholarship continues its mission to cultivate a vibrant space for Latine artists across various fields. It's a place for community, professional growth, and financial and creative support," said Hajnal Molnar-Szakacs, Director of the Artist Accelerator. "We're ecstatic to back a brand-new cohort of emerging artists, amplifying the Latine voice in film and television!"
The Sundance Institute Latine Fellowship will provide five early career Latine artists working in film or television with a yearlong fellowship experience. The fellows will each receive a $10,000 grant, bespoke creative and tactical support on their projects, and engage in regular cohort meetings. Fellows were selected from Sundance Institute artist support programs across fiction and nonfiction.
The Sundance Institute Latine Scholarship will provide five emerging Latine artists a yearlong scholarship to a course of their choice featuring unique expert insights and learnings on Sundance Collab. In addition, scholars will receive customized feedback on their projects, mentorship from a Sundance Institute artist alum, and opportunities to connect with Sundance staff and its broader creative community.
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Since the Latine Fellowship and Collab Scholarship launched last year, 11 artists have participated in the program. Alumni include Michael León, who has since made his Broadway debut as a playwright in New York, New York, and Cat Rodríguez, who recently received an Obie Award for her work with ensemble Fake Friends Theater Collective. Rodríguez's ensemble will embark upon several residencies where they will continue to develop their upcoming Sundance supported project, Untitled Bikini Body Building Project.
The 2023 Latine Fellowship and Collab Scholarships were developed with leadership funding support from Lyn Lear and Cindy Horn, and additional support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
The fellows selected for the 2023 Sundance Institute Latine Fellowship are:
Johnny Alvarez (writer-director) with Average Dick: Borrowing from pop culture, current events, and the fraught collective consciousness, this tragicomic anthology series weaves together a complex tapestry of fragile masculinity. Each surreal tale introduces us to a disparate cast of characters, from closeted congressmen and porn-addicted priests to polyamorists in the apocalypse. Amidst triumphs, transgressions, and acts of self-degradation, these men learn the true weight carried between their legs.
Esteban Bailey (writer-director) with The Death of Salvador Colón: In the aftermath of a devastating hurricane, Juan's father Salvador passes away, but when the overwhelmed police force fails to remove the body, Juan sets out to give his father a proper burial, confronting his own grief and the challenges of a ravaged community along the way.
Gabriella Garcia Pardo (director-producer) with Fenced (working title): Fences reflect our desires and fears. From our obsession with owning land and controlling virtual frontiers to the ways in which we divide ourselves, Fenced questions how the most ubiquitous human structure –– the fence –– shapes how we live, where we live, and the rules we live by.
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Gabriela Ortega (writer-director) with Huella: When her grandmother's death in the Dominican Republic unleashes a generational curse, Daniela, a restless flamenco dancer living in New York City, must confront her family's dark past as she fights for one last chance at professional dancing.
Walter Thompson-Hernández (writer-director) with If I Go Will They Miss Me: Twelve-year-old Lil Ant begins to see mysterious figures — eerie Black men with their arms spread like wings — around his home. When his father, Big Ant, realizes his son sees these "airplane people '' too, their family history emerges and reveals deeper meaning and connection between them.
The artists selected for the 2023 Sundance Institute Latine Collab Scholarship are:
David Rodríguez Estrada (writer-director-producer-editor) with Believer: Set in present day Mexico, Clemencia is an evangelical working-class mother with a terminally ill son. He confesses to her he used to work for the cartel and shares a notebook with detailed information of those he buried in clandestine graves. After he dies, Clemencia's faith finds itself at a crossroads.
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María Álvarez (writer-director) with Guava Tree: After the discovery of a family secret, a father travels back to his birthplace in Havana, Cuba for the first time in decades. But this time, he is accompanied by his eleven-year-old daughter.
Daniel Larios (writer-director) with Apocalipsis: Childhood sweethearts grow apart, as Isaac devotes himself to God and Maria becomes the party girl of their Salvadoran village. After Maria survives a freak accident Isaac caused, she declares that God saved her, gifting her His Message. Believing she must be a false prophet, Isaac aims to discredit her.
Silvia Castaños (co-director) with Untitled: Los Papeles de Mi Mami: Samantha lives in the city of Laredo, TX, in limbo between a country she came from and a country she seeks opportunity in, both bordered by a highly militarized state. Silvia, her first child, wants to heal with their mother as they both face deportation, separation, and the legal process.
Eliana Pipes (writer) with DREAM HOU$E: Two Latina sisters with a strained relationship inherit their family home in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood and decide to cash in on the property by selling it on an HGTV-style reality TV show that takes a twisted left turn.
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Sundance Institute
As a champion and curator of independent stories, the nonprofit Sundance Institute provides and preserves the space for artists across storytelling media to create and thrive. Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, the Institute's signature Labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. Sundance Collab, a digital community platform, brings a global cohort of working artists together to learn from each other and Sundance Advisors and connect in a creative space, developing and sharing works in progress. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences and artists to ignite new ideas, discover original voices, and build a community dedicated to independent storytelling.
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Through the Sundance Institute artists programs we have supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Big Sick, Bottle Rocket, Boys Don't Cry, Boys State, Call Me By Your Name, Clemency, CODA, Drunktown's Finest, The Farewell, Fire of Love, Flee, The Forty-Year-Old Version, Fruitvale Station, Get Out, Half Nelson, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hereditary, Honeyland, The Infiltrators, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Little Woods, Love & Basketball, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Mudbound, Nanny,Navalny, O.J.: Made in America, One Child Nation, Pariah, Raising Victor Vargas, Requiem for a Dream, Reservoir Dogs, RBG, Sin Nombre, Sorry to Bother You, The Souvenir, Strong Island, Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Swiss Army Man, Sydney, A Thousand and One, Top of the Lake, Walking and Talking, Won't You Be My Neighbor?, and Zola.
Through year-round artist programs, the Institute also nurtured the early careers of artists such Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Gregg Araki, Darren Aronofsky, Lisa Cholodenko, Ryan Coogler, Nia DaCosta, The Daniels, David Gordon Green, Miranda July, James Mangold, John Cameron Mitchell, Kimberly Peirce, Boots Riley, Ira Sachs, Quentin Tarantino, Taika Waititi, Lulu Wang, and Chloé Zhao. Support Sundance Institute in our commitment to uplifting bold artists and powerful storytelling globally by making a donation at sundance.org/donate. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube.
