Sundance Institute Announces 2022 Women at Sundance Adobe Fellows

Sundance Institute has announced the eight artists chosen for the third inaugural Women at Sundance | Adobe Fellowship. Elizabeth Ai (“A Woman’s Work: The NFL’s Cheerleader Problem”), Deidre Backs (“Little Chief”), Aisha Bhoori (“Ms. Marvel”), Zandashé Brown (“Horror Noire”), Joie Estrella Horwitz (“Alejandro & Miguel”), screenwriter Miciana Hutcherson, writer-director Meghan Ross, and Jin Yoo-Kim (“Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust”) comprise this year’s cohort, per a press release.

In addition to a $6,250 cash grant, fellows receive skill-building workshops and industry introductions, plus referrals to career development opportunities. Each of the fellows has previously participated in a Sundance Institute Lab or program relevant to their career path.

“Any artist can speak to how practical support paired with a nurturing community makes all the difference – this is especially true for women filmmakers, who are notoriously underrepresented in the industry. Providing multi-faceted assistance to our fellows as they develop their creative practices is our goal,” said Adella Ladjevardi, Sundance’s Associate Director for Women. “Our collaboration with Adobe has had a profound impact on the careers of so many talented storytellers in the past – we’re very excited to see how the new group advances with this customized and robust support.”

Past fellows include Jiayan “Jenny” Shi, whose documentary “Finding Yingying” won the Special Jury Award at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival.

Bios for the 2022 Sundance | Adobe fellows are below, courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Elizabeth Ai is a documentary and fiction filmmaker, show creator, and fellow of Berlinale Talents, Center for Asian American Media, Film Independent, Firelight Media, Tribeca Institute and Sundance Institute. She’s currently in post-production with her documentary feature New Wave and is simultaneously developing the dramatic series adaptation.

Deidre Backs worked at Alexander Payne’s development company before transitioning to independent producing. She was an associate producer on Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, then served under Daniel Lupi on Spielberg films and Jordan Peele’s Us. She produced Little Chief, premiering at Sundance 2020 and is a 2021 Sundance Producing alum.

Aisha Bhoori is a Pakistani-American writer who has written on MS. MARVEL (Disney+) and THE STAIRCASE (HBO Max). She is a 2021 Sundance Episodic Lab Fellow. She graduated from Harvard, where she was a three-time recipient of the Edward Eager Memorial Fund Prize for Best Creative Writing.

Based in New Orleans, Zandashé Brown is a writer/director born-and-bred in and inspired by southern Louisiana. Her work raises a Black femme lens to the tradition of southern gothic horror by exploring the axis of catharsis, spirituality, and Black southern experience. She recently participated in the Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Labs.

Joie Estrella Horwitz is a filmmaker, writer and producer based in Los Angeles. Her work employs a mixture of research based fieldwork with a collaborative approach to filmmaking to explore the space between fact and fiction at the intersection of physical and emotional borders.

Miciana Hutcherson’s feature script, Nancy’s Girls, led to the 2019 and 2021 Sundance Institute Indigenous Program Fellowships. Her second feature, Fancy Dance (co-writer), was supported by the 2021 Sundance Screenwriters Lab, 2021 SFFilm Rainin Grant, and was featured on the Indigenous List hosted by The Black List and the 2022 Scripted Cannes Screenplay List.

Meghan Ross is an Austin-based writer/director and Sundance Episodic Lab fellow. Her shorts were featured in The New Yorker’s Best Shouts of 2020 and nominated for The Webby Awards 2021. Her writing has been published by Reductress, VICE’s Broadly, TV Without Pity, The Toast, and other defunct but beloved sites.

Jin Yoo-Kim is producing Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust. She directed and produced for Take Out with Lisa Ling on HBO Max, and is in development for her docuseries, Cult Foods. She was a Sundance Producers Fellow, Firelight Media Impact Producing Fellow, and participated in the Film Independent Doc Lab.